Did Jesus have to learn his ABCs?

by Justin Dillehay

I remember a conversation about Jesus I had with a fellow Christian (we'll call her Dawn). Drawing from a book I had just read, I remarked, “Do you realize that Jesus may have spoken as many as three languages: Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew? Fascinating!” Somewhat to my surprise, she responded with a puzzled look and asked, “You mean you don’t think Jesus spoke all languages?” 

What would you have said?

How you answer will reflect how well you understand the Incarnation. Here's what I mean. According to the Bible, Jesus was God. The eternal Word, creator of heaven and earth (John 1:1-3). Dawn had no trouble with this--that's why she simply assumed he must have spoken all languages. After all, is not God omni-lingual?

What Dawn (and many other Christians) hadn't fully reckoned with was the other part of the Incarnation: Jesus is both God and man. Not only was the Word God, but the Word also became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). In some strange way, Jesus was both fully divine and fully human.

This is a great mystery (1 Tim. 3:16). But it's a mystery with fascinating implications for how Jesus learned his ABCs (or Aleph-Bet-Gimels). Somehow, as God Jesus was omniscient--he knew everything. And yet as man, somehow he didn't. This is clear from Mark 13:32

“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
(Mark 13:32 ESV)

When would Jesus return in the clouds? Answer: he didn't know.

As shocking as this admission of ignorance may seem, it should come as no surprise to anyone who has read the Gospels. When we read Matthew and Luke, we learn that Jesus started his life as a baby. Do you think he knew very much then? Was he a little Einstein in a baby's body? Not according to Luke. Luke says that as the years passed, Jesus "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52).

Do you realize what this means? It means that as a toddler, Jesus had to learn to walk, learn to talk, learn to read. And are we to believe that all this was effortless for him? Are we to believe that the toddler Jesus would have never fallen down and scraped his knee, or that the student Jesus would never have had to be reminded that Mem comes after Lamed (i.e. M comes after L)?

Jesus wasn’t born with the Bible downloaded into his brain. He had to learn it the hard way by study and meditation and memorization the same way that his brothers and sisters do.

Jesus was sinless, yes. But apparently sinlessness isn't the same as instant maturity. He increased in wisdom and stature. He learned obedience through what he suffered. It was a process.

This means that Jesus at age 9 was wiser than Jesus at age 3. And it means that Jesus at age 12 knew less than Jesus at age 25. 

This is the humanity of Jesus. Somehow, in the mystery of the incarnation, when the omniscient Son of God clothed himself with a human body and a rational soul, he chose to suspend the exercise of some of his divine attributes in order to live as a true human being.

How important is this? Well, our eternal salvation just sort of hangs on it.

We are all sinners. Sinners need forgiveness. But without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. And without the Incarnation there is no shedding of the immortal God's non-existent blood. Listen to the book of Hebrews:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
(Hebrews 2:14-15 ESV)

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
(Hebrews 4:15 ESV)

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,
(Hebrews 5:7-9 ESV)

He learned obedience to the point of becoming perfect--this is how he became the source of eternal salvation. Like I said, pretty important.

So did Jesus speak all languages?

Here's what I told Dawn:

“Well no, not during the 'days of his flesh.' I don’t think he spoke all languages any more than I think he spoke Hebrew as a baby. Rather, I think he spoke all the languages that he learned to speak as a human being.”

This is the humanity of Jesus.

For us and for our salvation, the Eternal, Almighty, omniscient Son stooped to learn his ABCs. 

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Further reading:

Bruce Ware- The Man Christ Jesus: Theological Reflections on the Humanity of Christ
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Christ-Jesus-Theological-Reflections/dp/1433513056/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396026288&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Man+Christ+Jesus

Patrick Henry Reardon- The Jesus We Missed: The Surprising Truth About the Humanity of Christ
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-We-Missed-Surprising-Humanity/dp/1595553711/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396026348&sr=1-3&keywords=patrick+henry+reardon

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The week we tried to be reality stars

By Tilly Dillehay

Today I’m going to tell you the story of the time my father and I tried to get into reality television. It’s a grim and a strange story, but I think you can handle it.

In 2008, when I was fresh out of college, my father got wind of an audition coming to Nashville. It wasn’t being advertised except among industry people, for some reason. I suppose they were targeting all the unemployed and slightly desperate songwriters that tend to pool in the cracks of Music City.

The show was called Jingles. Supposedly, CBS reported, a producer had decided to combine the concepts behind The Apprentice (remember, this was 2008) and American Idol. Contestants on the show would be creating ads for real products, and they would do it in teams. They’d audition as a team and compete as a team, and every week, they’d have to write and perform new assignments for a live audience.

Well, for some reason, my father and I were able to talk each other into thinking that this would be a good thing for us to get involved in.

We’ll be a team! A father-daughter team! We’ll call ourselves The Cryars!

We had a week or so to prepare, so we set about writing our three audition pieces. The audition packet said that we needed to write two jingles. One was supposed to advertise ourselves as a team. The other was for a fictional product, which we could pick off of a provided list. We picked some kind of feminine sounding razor brand.

Now here’s something you should know, before I tell you about how we approached this razor jingle: A little-known fact about me is that I can do a pretty decent Marilyn Monroe impression.

Everybody has one random and useless talent. Some people can burp the alphabet. Some can do three cartwheels in a row. I can sing like Marilyn Monroe, when pressed, and when I haven’t eaten dairy or citrus in 24 hours. Not look like her. Not act like her. Just sing like her.

So I went out and bought a dressy looking dress and a blonde wig, and put on a lot of makeup and we wrote the razor ad to sound like a Marilyn Monroe song.

For our team jingle, we prepared a rap, just to shake things up a bit. My part went something like this:
My name is Tilly; you can call me Short-T/ well, if you want to, you can call me Tall-T/got my degree but I ain’t got no money/ (My dad: “but don’t buy her drinks, ‘cause she’s still only 20”)/. Don’t you be hatin’ just because we so white/ cuz we so wh-wh-wh-white, we reflectin’ the light/ see, I got it from him, and he got it from his folk/ it’s hereditary, so don’t fix it; it’s not broke.

I don't remember Papa's part, which came next.

So we showed up on the sweltering day of the audition. We were crammed into a room with a lot of music-y looking people. A woman with a huge harp was in line in front of us; a couple of guys with dreadlocks were in line behind us. When our turn came, we went into a large enclosed room with a couple of guys in black glasses watching.

They told us to just go ahead, so we lurched forward into the Marilyn Monroe bit. My dad played the ukulele and sang backup. From there, Papa started into his personal version of beatboxing, which, if I am correct, is the name for that thing where guys make sounds with their hands and mouths to imitate a hip-hop beat. Then we rapped, and I think that I also beatboxed a little when it was his turn to rap, and then we stood silently before them, blinking in the light.

The most amazing thing about this story is that they called us back after something like that.

But they did. And we went back. We did the same ridiculous thing over again, and added another jingle they asked for, about tires or something.

A week later, we got the call. We were in! We’d been asked to fly to LA for the next-stage-of-whatever-happens-next, and they mailed us a contract that was about two inches thick.

Well, naturally we were a little surprised by this turn of events, and were each thrown into a few days of deep inner conflict. Do we actually want to be on a reality show? What about our normal jobs? Here’s something else that bothered us: the contract had a whole lot of suspicious phrases about how we’d have no right to protest about how they used images of us, and they could set up cameras anywhere, with or without our knowledge, and we couldn’t talk to family or friends for the eight weeks of show filming. But another question loomed even larger in our minds:

Do we want to be those kinds of people? Do we want to sell our privacy for this genre of television?
The prize was something like a million dollars or a job at an ad agency; I don’t remember. In the end, we decided it wasn’t worth it. We declined.

I never saw that show hit the air. It must have fizzled—I don’t know if it fizzled after they shipped everybody out to LA or before. I don’t know if they shot a few episodes and realized it wasn’t working. I don’t really know what happened to Jingles.

I’m just glad, in retrospect, that I wasn’t there to see it.

-----

 

I've wondered, before and since this experience, exactly what a Christian's role should be in cultural phenomena like reality TV.

 

I remember a guy going on Survivor very early on, when the idea of the show was still new and exciting to people. He was a Christian, and it was clear, from the one episode I saw, that they'd cast him as a sort of caricature piece. They'd cast the Tough Old Man, the Flirty Girl, the Spiritually Open-minded Woman, and the Christian Guy. And it was ridiculous; nobody watching him could take it seriously that he was on this show 'to bring glory to God' and that he had these sort of arbitrarily chosen ethical standards, which quickly led to his being kicked off the show.

 

Even as a 12 year old, I couldn't understand how this was really a thing one should do in order to 'bring glory to God.' What part of placing yourself in a silly or even morally compromising situation in front of a TV camera, knowing that they will be free to manipulate your behavior, your image, and in short, your message, is a boon to your Christian witness? Would winning Survivor really bring glory to God in the sense that Christian Guy meant it to?

 

Now of course, reality TV comes in a lot of shapes and sizes. Some of these shows are necessarily going to place you in compromising positions--Next Top Model does that, in my opinion, and something extreme like Temptation Island obviously does, and the Bachelor pretty clearly does (we remember that one guy who displayed his remarkable Christian faith by dating literally dozens of women, in front of a camera, and then insisting on only making out with the final two, in front of a camera, instead of going the traditional route and spending the night with each of them). Others are not as clearly problematic--American Idol, probably, and Say Yes to the Dress.

 

This is not a call for Christians to stay off of stages and hide from cameras, to avoid show biz, or even to avoid any situation in which they will look silly. We aren't here to take ourselves too seriously, and we aren't here to hide our lights under bushes. And guess what? We're going to look silly. We're going to be cast, even if we don't sign up for reality TV, as the bigots and half-wits and hypocrites of the world.

 

But are we really here to promote ourselves the way the world is accustomed to doing? Are we really going to kid ourselves that we could play the game and not be changed by it? Do we really think that our witness to the Lord's fame was intended to stand under the pressure of pride that comes with being called an 'American Idol'?

 

I recognize that not all public life is harmful. There are lots of arenas of public life that Christians should be charging into with swords raised.

 

Reality is unique in the way it invades privacy, promotes inanity, and re-tells stories falsely. But it's also sort of a dying trend, you've noticed. I don't currently own a TV, so I'm not sure what's playing right now, but I have an impression that networks are straying back into scripted waters.

 

So maybe reality TV is not the conundrum for Christians that it was ten years ago. While we wait for the next crazy trend, we can cultivate our personal policies to be ready for it. We can prepare to be the sorts of people who respond wisely to real opportunity, and to see foolish 'opportunity' for what it is.

 

Bet on it: we will have pressure enough in this world to be shamed out of our integrity. Let's strengthen ourselves for the moments that count, not walk like idiots into moments that do not count for longer than 15 shallow-fame minutes.



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Comic Relief: Why Atheists Don't Exist

Great mock interview. The guy being interviewed, "Dr. Terry Tommyrot," is impersonating the atheist Richard Dawkins. His book, "The Dawkins Delusion," is a spoof on Dawkins's "The God Delusion."

Are you envious of beautiful people?

by Justin Dillehay

Small town homecoming queen
She's the star in this scene
There's no way to deny she's lovely
Perfect skin, perfect hair
Perfumed hearts everywhere
Tell myself that inside she's ugly
Maybe I'm just jealous
I can't help but hate her
Secretly I wonder if my boyfriend wants to date her

“Girl Next Door,” Saving Jane

What would you say to this girl? Any counsel?

Outwardly, at least, the problem stems from the fact that she regards another person as more attractive than herself. Nothing very unusual here. Most of us could think of plenty of people whom we would regard as better looking than we are (if we think of such things at all).

Possible responses? We might be filled with admiration, contentment, and appreciation. We might be indifferent. Or we might be filled with self-pity, insecurity, or envy. The girl in the song obviously chose the latter path. How we respond to the perception that someone else is our superior in the looks department will depend largely on what kind of value we place on outward appearance.

Biblically speaking, of course, that last category of responses (self-pity, insecurity, and envy) is morally out of bounds. And while indifference is certainly better than envy, our ultimate goal should be a grateful recognition of our neighbor’s good qualities, be they beauty or brawn or brains or whatever.  

But as I said, how you respond will depend mostly on how you think about outward beauty. So how should you think? What do you tell someone who is smarting with envy or insecurity or self-pity at someone else’s perceived superior looks? Or if it’s you, what do you tell yourself?

Explaining beauty away

One popular response to feelings of beauty-inferiority is to simply deny the inferiority altogether. Simply say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that everyone is beautiful in their own way.

Let me begin by saying that I don’t think this response is completely without merit. It’s true that standards of beauty are relative to some degree. The pin-up girls from the 18^th century look a bit different from those of today (indeed, the ideal seems to get skinnier and skinnier). We surely need to be aware of how much our image of the attractive person is shaped by the culture around us.

Having said that, however, I don’t think slogans like ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ or ‘Everyone is beautiful in their own way’ are an adequate way to deal with beauty-envy.

First, cultural relativity notwithstanding, such slogans are simply too hard to believe in the face of reality. To put it simply, everyone just knows that some people are better looking than others. And the ordinary-looking girl who gets told that ‘Everyone is beautiful in their own way’ will probably suspect that you are just trying to make her feel better. Such lame slogans only slap a band-aid over the gaping wound.

The Bible also recognizes this. There’s a difference between putting outward beauty in its proper place (which Scripture does do) and levelling the beauty field altogether (which Scripture does not do). Rather than ignoring outward beauty, the biblical authors frequently describe certain people as attractive, sometimes even in contrast to others.

Sarah was “beautiful in appearance” (Gen. 12:11-14), Vashti was “lovely to look at” (Esth. 1:11), Rebekkah was “attractive in appearance” (Gen. 26:7), Esther “had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at” (Esth. 2:7), and Rachel was “beautiful in form and appearance,” unlike her sister Leah, whose “eyes were weak” (Gen. 29:17).

Same goes for men. Joseph “was handsome in form and appearance” (Gen. 39:6), David was “ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome” (1 Sam. 16:12), and of Saul it was said, “there was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he” (1 Sam. 9:2).

These texts all point out how physically attractive some people were. They make no apology for it. Nor do the authors simply mean that these people were beautiful in the same sense that everyone around them was beautiful. If that were the case, it would make no more sense for Moses to mention Sarah’s beauty than it would for him to mention that she had ten fingers.

I’m afraid we must accept the hard truth. The biblical authors are simply confirming what all of us know to be true when we’re not playing dumb or chewing on sour grapes: some people are just better looking than others. The borrowed, fading glory of outward beauty is real, and it is not equally distributed.

Which brings me to my other reason for being suspicious of slogans like “Everyone is beautiful in their own way.” I can’t help but think that such statements are themselves reflections of envy--a way of verbally (though not really) chopping off the tall stalks by telling ourselves that all stalks are tall in their own way. But such pretense requires a conspiracy of feigned ignorance, and most people aren’t fooled by it. As the envious girl in the song conceded, “There’s no way to deny she’s lovely.” Or in the words of C.S. Lewis’s demon Screwtape,

No man who says I'm as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce...nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept. And therefore resents.

We can "tell [ourselves] that inside she's ugly," but such thoughts are simply an ugly reflection of our own inward selves. 

I'm afraid this won't do.

Outward beauty is real. It’s a borrowed glory, and some people have more of it than others.

Putting beauty in its place

Having noted how the biblical writers recognize the existence of both beauty and plainness, it it vital to realize that they weigh the value of outward beauty very differently than the world does.

In a chapter discussing the qualities of a virtuous woman, the wisdom-writer notes that “charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain” (Prov. 31:30). In other words, it’s a nice quality for a girl to have, but it’s much better to be a “woman who fears the LORD.” It’s not that charm and beauty are inherently bad; it’s just that they’re both easily abused and overrated by the world.

The inner person of the heart is to be valued more than outward appearance.As the Apostle Peter remarks:

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.
(1 Pet. 3: ESV)

Notice why inner beauty is so precious: because unlike outward beauty, it is imperishable. Outward beauty is temporary. You're going to get old and grey and baggy. (Note that the existence of face lifts and Grecian formula also says something about how our culture values outward appearance.) Your outward self is perishing, but your inward self is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16). 

In short, inner beauty doesn't grey or wrinkle. 

The Apostle Paul reasons in a similar way about bodily exercise and training:

...rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
(1 Tim. 4:7-8)

Notice that Paul doesn’t completely pooh-pooh all bodily training. He simply puts it in its proper place. The same thing is true of outward beauty: Scripture doesn’t completely dismiss it. It simply assigns it an ordinate value. That’s the difference between the Bible’s view of outward beauty and the world’s view: the world places an inordinate value on outward beauty. It ranks it higher than it should. It turns the apostles’ counsel on its head, urging people to focus solely on the beauty that won’t even last through this life, much less the life to come.  

Worshiping a homely Savior

I concluded an earlier section by saying that outward beauty is real and some people have more of it than others. If this is a hard pill for us to swallow, I suspect that this in an indication that we have already swallowed the world’s inordinate view of beauty.

The more value we place on something, the worse we feel if we don’t have it and the more envious we feel of those who do.

Why do we get so uncomfortable at the thought of being plain Janes or regular Joes? Do we think that being attractive is an indispensable part of being human, like having a soul? I mean, if people regarded you as a sub-human creature without a soul (as the Nazis regarded the Jews), then you would have just cause for being upset, and for protesting, “I, too, am a man/woman."

But being unattractive or plain does not make you less than human. On the contrary--it so happens that the greatest, most truly human person who ever lived came up short in this area. Using the same Hebrew words that Moses had used to describe Rachel (Gen. 29:17), Isaiah said of the Lord Jesus,

He had no form nor majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
(Isa. 53:2)

Translation: Jesus wasn’t attractive.

Those of you who are, think about this when you’re tempted in vanity to overvalue your looks, as though physical beauty were the be all and end all of human existence. Those of you who aren’t, think about this when you are tempted in self-pity to undervalue your body because it isn’t as beautiful as other peoples.’

Jesus knows what it’s like. He knows how it feels to have no beauty that anyone should desire him. You don’t have a high priest who is unable to be touched with the feeling of your infirmity. He has identified with you in your plainness, just as surely as he has identified with the poor in their poverty.

If we allow Scripture to refocus our vision; if we pull the goddess Beauty down from its idolatrous pedestal and set it in its proper place among the biblical values, then we will find that beauty-envy has no soil to thrive in.

And if we find that God has given us relatively little of this particular glory, then we will be content to make the most of the glories he has given us. And we will be able to respond properly to the greater glory he has given others--not by envying it or resenting it or denying it or lusting after it, but by recognizing and admiring it, just as the writers of Scripture did. 

Let GQ and Cosmo think what they will. In the sight of God, it's OK to be "just the girl (or guy) next door."

Ten Superfoods that will make you live a normal life and then die

By Tilly Dillehay


I started my day this morning with a blueberry and chia smoothie. For elevensies, I sat down to a plate of quinoa, kale, and cabbage. For second lunch, I enjoyed a bowl of almond/coconut milk chowder with wild-caught salmon.

That's right.

Today is going to be a super day.


You can't troll around online for very long without stumbling across a list of items that somebody has labeled Superfood. "Ten Superfoods to Live Longer and Fight Fat!" "Five Superfoods For Glowing Skin!" "Seven Superfoods You Didn't Know About (and should be eating TODAY)!" "Three Superfoods That Will Bring Your Grandmother Back From the Dead!"

When you click into these food lists (unless you're on some site that is actually peddling goji berries or fish oil supplements), you'll find something remarkable.

They're just vegetables. Really. They're just your good old fashioned vegetables, the ones mom tried to make you eat when you were a kid. I just found one on webMD this morning, and do you know what was on there, the super-duper secret wonderfood formula for health and well being?

Broccoli.
Spinach.
Oranges.

Are you serious, webMD? I need something exotic, here. I need something that will change me from the inside out (while allowing me to subsist on a desk-to-couch diet of chips and brownies and Bluebell ice cream).

Eating a plain old-fashioned diet of meat, fish, nuts, yogurt, beans, vegetables, and fruits simply cannot be the most powerful and revolutionary way to get energy, sleep, good skin, good hair, healthy weight, and a breakneck libido. It can't be!

I want a magic seed that was used by the Aztecs for energy while they were hunting panthers in the jungle. I want a yogurt culture that's been growing in animal skins in Iran since 200 BC. I want a mushroom that melts fat directly off of my thighs and reassembles it in my lips.

We're talking Superfoods, here. They're supposed to be super. Faster than a speeding bullet blender! More powerful than a laxative! Able to leap genetic predispositions in a single bound!

I simply cannot accept that an ordinary diet with ordinary vegetables is going to be sufficient to keep me young and alive forever.

Oh, that's right. It's because they won't. Nothing will.

These ordinary foods are now called Super simply for being real food. That only goes to show you how rare real food is, not how invincible you will be when you eat real food.

Maybe those ordinary foods are super because they're the way people have been eating for thousands of years. Maybe these ordinary foods are super because they were designed to be sufficient for the job they've been given: feeding millions of ordinary people in a pleasant and satisfying way, since the world began. Maybe they're part of God's common grace to a whole bunch of terminal humans, who, no matter how much flaxseed we consume, are still going to die one day.

That's right. I'm sorry, Dr. Oz. We're going to live, we're going to experience sickness, and we're going to die. Superfood or no Superfood. Quinoa is no holy grail.

But in the meantime we should probably admit, as webMD suggests, that we'll have a much more productive and enjoyable time here if we cut down a bit on foods that come in shrinkwrap.

Comic Relief: It's Not Exactly Brain Surgery

From now on, our faithful readers (may their tribe increase!) should expect to see periodic posts with the title "Comic Relief." These posts will consist of a short YouTube video containing something funny and clean. We are doing this for at least three reasons:

1) because we have seen other bloggers do it, and liked it 

2) because we like to laugh, and we want to share things that make us laugh

3) because sometimes we are too busy to write anything new

Our first offering is one of Justin's personal favorites. 

Animal cruelty: the gateway crime?

By Tilly Dillehay

A few weeks ago, my newspaper reported on a local animal cruelty arrest. A photo of a dog, which had allegedly been malnourished and left in an unheated shed during the coldest days of the winter, was included. The dog had been found frozen to the floor of the shed.

The online version of this story went viral, eventually getting about 255,000 hits from all over the US. An animal rights group up north started a petition, asking the judge involved with the case to see that justice was done. I got numerous emails from people, asking for contact information for the judge. We had dozens upon dozens of outraged comments on our website.

All of them called for justice, many using violent terms themselves to describe the way the person responsible should be treated.

I was a little flabbergasted by all of this.

After all, we have reported about a lot of terrible things that people do to each other: child abuse, drug trafficking, rape and murder. But none of those stories had gone so far so fast in the cyberworld. This one—an admittedly awful case of animal cruelty—was the story that brought an avalanche of emotional, livid responses.

I decided to do a little reading about this issue, because it is clearly something I don’t understand well. I’ve never seen animals abused before. I don’t really know what motivates underground dogfighting or cockfighting rings. I haven’t even owned a pet in some time (although as a child, I had a reputation as an animal lover and was often called “Ellie-Mae” by my parents… yes, that’s a nod to The Beverly Hillbillies).

But a comment by one of the local animal control officers also sparked my interest. He mentioned, offhandedly, that animal cruelty has been “linked to other criminal activity.”

Turns out, he was right.

They didn’t start doing studies on this issue until the 70s, 80s, and 90s. But in those decades, dozens of studies came out with the following claims (courtesy of the Animal Legal Defense Fund):

• In homes where serious animal abuse has occurred, there may be an increased probability that some other type of family violence is also happening.
• Threats of or actual abuse of a companion animal may be used to intimidate, coerce, or control women and children to remain in and/or be silent about their abusive situation, out of concern for the safety of their pet.
• If a child is cruel to animals it may be a sign that serious abuse or neglect has been inflicted on the child; children who witness animal abuse are at greater risk of becoming abusers themselves.
• If a child exhibits aggressive or sexualized behavior toward animals it may be associated with later abuse of humans, unless the behavior is recognized and stopped.
• Violent offenders incarcerated in maximum‐security prisons are significantly more likely than nonviolent offenders to have committed childhood acts of cruelty toward pets.
• A study undertaken by the MSPCA and Northeastern University found that 70 percent of people who committed violent crimes against animals also had records for other crimes. Compared with a control group of their neighbors, animal abusers were five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people, four times more likely to commit property crimes, and three times more likely to have a record for drug or disorderly‐conduct offenses.

Animal cruelty is serious, yes. It’s serious because human beings were created to be stewards of creation, not abusers. It’s serious because life is something to treasure, not something to destroy.

But in case the idea of ‘animal rights’ is still vaguely associated with PETA nonsense in your mind, consider the above points, and then consider something else: this is not a new issue.

People have written on animal cruelty long before now. In his essay "Our Duty to Brutes" (i.e. animals), Francis Wayland wrote, "There can be no clearer indication of a degraded and ferocious temper, than cruelty to animals."  And John Dagg argued that "He who tortures flies for amusement is preparing himself, if he should obtain power over human lives, to sacrifice them to his fiendish pleasure." 

Both of these pieces were written in the 1800s, long before PETA. Both of the authors were Christian theologians, and both of them call on the authority of something outside of themselves to argue for man’s obligation to treat “brutes” well: the Bible.

Proverbs 12:10 makes this principal terribly clear: “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.”

So you have my permission, political conservative, to take this seriously. If a person is cruel to an animal, it seems to be well documented that they are also cruel to men, women, and children.

Cruelty is like a snowball; it builds on itself, and is never content to stay the same shape and size.

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[The brief (one page long) essays on the treatment of animals by Francis Wayland and John Dagg may be read here:
http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/wayland/wayl-270.htm
and here
http://books.google.com/books?id=ykZWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=John+Dagg+Injustice+to+Brutes&source=bl&ots=Ako4Z8WtFr&sig=wFqZd_xC_imLqIi3efBFSbQyhos&hl=en&sa=X&ei=aJ8gU6q-GIeW2QWZ2IGABw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=John%20Dagg%20Injustice%20to%20Brutes&f=false ]

When Paul makes married people uncomfortable

by Justin Dillehay

A few weeks ago I was sitting in a Sunday school class of about ten people, and I watched a few of them get rather uncomfortable.

The passage being discussed was 1 Corinthians 7:25-40. In these verses, the Apostle Paul is addressing single people and widows, and he says some very provocative things about the advantages of not being married. For instance, in verses 32-34 he says,

"I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided." 

Divided? Divided between what? Between the interests of the Lord and the interests of his wife, clearly. And if this weren't clear enough, Paul goes on to say that his goal in recommending singleness is to "secure [their] undivided devotion to the Lord" (v. 35). In other words, there is a kind of undivided devotion to the Lord that you simply cannot have when you are married.

Now this was the point in the class when one young homeschooling mother of two began to get uncomfortable. All this talk about "divided interests" and "worldly things" seemed to upset her. "But I feel like I'm serving the Lord by serving my husband and kids," she remarked.

Nor was she the only one perplexed. A twenty-something single guy (to whom marriage probably looked pretty inviting--at least if my own experience as a single twenty-something is a safe guide to reading other men's minds) also seemed perturbed by Paul's coldness toward conjugal ties. Surely it's not good for a man to be alone!

Now here's the thing: anyone familiar with the Bible will know that those two folks were tapping into something true. Paul says a lot of positive things about marriage in other passages, like Ephesians 5. What I realized, however, was that these folks--and many Christians like them--were much more comfortable with the "Ephesians 5 Family-friendly Paul" than with the "1 Corinthians 7 Single-friendly Paul." And given their situations in life this was understandable.

It's understandable for conservative Christian families with young kids to identify with the practical, Christ-centered picture of the natural family laid out in Eph. 5. It's understandable that a chaste single man burning with passion would view conjugal bedroom privileges as more to be desired than undivided devotion--yea, than much fine undivided devotion! (Paul, of course, has some inspired counsel for that guy right there in 1 Cor. 7:8-9.)

On the flip side, it's also understandable for the radical, sold-out Christian college student or the veteran missionary to appreciate the image of "undivided devotion" commended in 1 Cor. 7. And that's as it should be. After all, Paul was aiming Eph. 5 at married people, and 1 Cor. 7 (at least some of it) at unmarried people.

In other words, we must allow both Pauls to speak clearly, because in reality, they are not two Paul's, but one Paul addressing different situations. Think of these two passages as two different keys on a piano. On the one hand, they harmonize with each other--they're not in conflict--but on the other hand, they're not the same key.

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In many ways, how we integrate the "1 Cor. 7 Paul" and the "Eph. 5 Paul" serves as a test case for faithful Bible interpretation. Using the piano key analogy, there are at least two dangers we need to avoid:

1. Playing the wrong key at the wrong time. We do this when we try apply the wrong text to our particular situation. For example, on more than one occasion, I've heard young married men with small children bemoan the fact that they're not able to "do more for the kingdom" because they're so busy with job and family. 1 Cor. 7 makes perfect sense to them--"divided interests" indeed!

"Maybe I shouldn't have gotten married after all. Now my interests are divided, and I'm forever a second class Christian with no time to really serve God!"  What would Paul say to such a person? I think it would go something like this:

"Well, brother, at one level I understand your concern. I told you in 1 Cor. 7 that marriage would complicate your life. But remember I also told you that marriage is a blessing from God. This is no time to be discontented with your lot, friend! You've made your choice, and it was a God-honoring choice. Yes, singleness is a gift, but so is marriage. However, you can't have the benefits of both at the same time. So at this point, you need to steep yourself in Eph. 5 and learn to serve the kingdom by serving your wife and kids. Ephesians 5 is the right key at the right time for you. Love your wife as Christ loved the church. Disciple your kids for Jesus. That is now your calling. No looking back. So use my epistles wisely, and don't play the wrong key at the wrong time."

2. Forcing all the keys to sound the same. This is what those folks in the Sunday School class were doing. They sensed that this radical sounding "1 Cor. 7 Paul" was playing a slightly different note from the bourgeois sounding "Eph. 5 Paul" (whom they were more comfortable with). But instead of hearing harmony, they were hearing dissonance. So they sought to resolve the dissonance by flattening out all the notes.

This is always a danger for Bible-believing Christians. After all, we believe that the Bible is internally harmonious, and not full of contradictions. But we need to remember that there's a difference between all the notes being harmonious and all the notes being identical. Sometimes when we read an unfamiliar verse that sounds different from verses we know and love, we grasp for an artificial harmony that ends up drowning out the message of the verse in front of us. Family-friendly types can smother 1 Cor. 7 with Eph. 5. Radical 'everyone needs to be a missionary' types can smother Eph.5 with 1 Cor. 7. Cage-stage 'gospel-centered' types can take the Sermon on the Mount and turn it into a sermon on justification by faith. The list could go on.

But simplistic solutions like these make the Bible boring. The theological music falls flat. Instead of being harmonious, it ends up being monotonous, as we bang on the same key ad infinitum. Worst of all, we end up silencing God's word and impoverishing our own understanding.

So next time Paul makes you uncomfortable, sit up and take notice! God is giving you a chance to grow--to add a key to your theological piano--to broaden your mind, to widen your gaze, and to deepen your grasp of his word. Don't let your discomfort rob you of that. Learn to play the key he's given you.

(For further reading, see John Piper's article, "Brothers, Let us Query the Text"
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/brothers-let-us-query-the-text

Are high heels immodest?

By Tilly Dillehay

Short answer? No.

More complicated short answer? Sometimes.

I know I'll have to explain this one.

Well, I heard this great talk on modesty at the Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries conference in February (by Janet Aucoin, if you want to know), and it’s gotten me thinking seriously about modesty issues for the first time in a while.

Here is a list of the reasons, in my opinion, that Christian women who ought to know better dress immodestly. This list should answer our original question in a roundabout way.

Seven reasons Christian women dress immodestly:

1.       Ignorance

You may be ignorant about either what modesty is, or how hard men really have it.

What is modesty? Let’s settle this: dressing immodestly either reveals too much or calls attention to private areas of the body. Or, as we’ll find later, it simply calls attention.

How hard do men have it? As a teen and young adult, I heard the ‘men are visual’ party line often, but never understood it. This changed about three years ago, soon after my conversion, when I read a few books like For Women Only and some marriage titles. A few things were suddenly made clear: 

A)     We are being much too bland when we describe this issue in terms of ‘don’t be a stumbling block for men’. This is warfare that we’re talking about, and in any given room, there may be epic struggles under way that we know nothing about.

Helpful comparison: men / sight = women / touch. Asking a man to just get over it when our clothing either REVEALS or EMPHASIZES private body parts would be like asking a teenage girl to simply not react when her boyfriend touches her sweetly, puts his arms around her waist, caresses her cheek, and fondles her. It is unloving and unfair.

B)      Men who are actually in this battle (not sitting down, utterly defeated) will thank you for giving them a rest, because the world will NEVER GIVE THEM A REST.

C)      Young men can carry lifelong anger and bitterness towards women who dressed provocatively in front of them when they were vulnerable. Sometimes, these are women who will never know the hurt they’ve caused.

I still vividly remember being pulled aside once by kind older women and told that my dress was too low and needed something underneath it. It is etched in my mind because in that instance, I truly didn’t know.

I appeal to you, if this section makes you wonder whether you’ve simply been ignorant until now. Ignorance is no longer an excuse for you. Read up on this topic.

2.       Insecurity

This was the number one emotion that characterized my experience of dressing in my teens and early twenties. There was one dominating question that controlled me as I picked items to put on my body every morning: does this make me look thinner than I am?

When you are deeply insecure or dissatisfied with your body, you will make bad dressing decisions. Things that don’t match or are unflattering will pass the mirror test, simply because they take a few pounds off and that’s the only thing that matters to you.

In addition to being a bad dresser, you will give yourself a pass on short, low, or tight pieces, for the same desperate reason.

I have a soft spot for this excuse, because it was mine for so long. But I have to say it, again: this is no longer an excuse for you. Harming others is never excusable because you were in a weak position when you did it.

3.       Vanity

This reason is probably more rare than we think, but it still exists. A vain woman dresses immodestly because, as the world says, “she can get away with that.” She’s got it, so she wants to flaunt it. It feels like a waste to her to have such great legs/back/shoulders/chest/butt/whatever, and not to be able to show them off.

I don’t know how else to appeal to this girl, except to say: stop that. Stop being so incredibly selfish. And if (as it often is) this is simply another form of the Insecurity issue—you believe that your body is the most important thing you have going for you, so you emphasize it—I say the same thing. Weakness is no excuse for you.

But this mode of immodesty reveals a much bigger problem in a woman’s heart: this girl obviously doesn’t understand what makes a woman lovely. She doesn’t understand what godliness is, or what holiness is... or even basic things about what impression she is actually making on men whose good opinion she craves.

She needs to be brought back to the drawing board.

4.       Ruthlessness/Lack of mercy and love

If I had to analyze my situation right now, I would have to put my temptations to dress immodestly smack dab into this category.

Since I’ve been married, I have honestly been freed to enjoy dressing in a way I never imagined. I enjoy it now; I also think less about it than ever before. My husband’s generous appreciation of my body has given me a security that I did not expect. For the first time, it would be easy for me to carelessly throw something on that I know, really know, is unkind to men on the street, simply because I'm a carefree dresser for the first time in my life.

At the same time, I can’t pretend ignorance anymore. I’ve read more, and been taught more, and my husband is quite willing to ask me to change a problem item before I walk out the door. So if I wear an item that I know is questionable, I can only do it by willfully dimming my own understanding (Romans 1:21).

I need to remember 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 (“love is patient, love is kind...love does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own... does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth...”) and Matthew 5:7 (“blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy...”).

When I ignore what others have advised concerning a certain style or item of clothing, I am being willful. When I ignore the things I know about a man’s eyes, and the intense and sobering thing he undertakes when he makes a covenant with them, I am being RUTHLESS. I am being MERCYLESS. I am LACKING IN LOVE.

5.       Eyes full of the world

It may be that we are simply worldly. We don’t know what modesty is because we have filled our minds with a fool’s standard.

My friends, let me make a very obvious point: everybody is modest compared to Miley Cyrus.

I am in a fortunate situation just now. I go to a church that is in a rural area, and it is full of women who are adorned with good works and godly spirits. The examples I have around me are truly stupendous. It’s not that we don’t have mature women in the church who dress nicely and care for their appearance, or even young women who are still trying to figure out what fashion is all about. But when I enter a room full of people from my church, I feel an actual release of competition and physical insecurity.

When I think of the ladies that I admire and would like to emulate, they are women whose clothing never comes into my mind. They are women who set examples in discipleship, in practical service (like meals for sick people and cleaning), in evangelism, and in being faithful to their own families.

I’ve noticed it time and again—I am more insecure about my clothing when I’m in the city. The competition that I do not feel in my home church can begin to rise in me again when I’m in another atmosphere.  

I’m very blessed in my home church, I realize that. Not everyone is blessed with a whole clump of good examples like that. But each of us has the opportunity to fall on one side of this line of influence or the other side.

And remember, I don’t have to leave my little town to put myself in that unsatisfied, idle, vain, competitive mode—too much time on Pinterest or thumbing through InStyle does it to me, too. I have to know these areas of temptation.

So here’s another Captain Obvious moment: If you feed yourself on spiritually shallow content, you will be worldly and spiritually shallow.

And you probably won’t look at keyhole cutouts the way you ought to.

6.       Confusion about CONTEXT

This was one of the totally novel ideas introduced to me at this conference in February. Sometimes, modesty isn’t about lust at all. Sometimes, it’s about not drawing attention to yourself. And drawing attention to yourself often has to do with context.

Example: go to a wedding in a long white dress, and you will draw undue attention to yourself. People will be confused, distracted (and maybe angry). But if you’re going to YOUR OWN WEDDING? You should be wearing a white dress. It’s appropriate. It fits the occasion and it gives people helpful social cues about WHO IS GETTING MARRIED.

Another example: I have been wearing one-piece swimsuits with shorts since I was young and my parents made me. I still wear that particular combination to swim in. And yes, I think bikinis are a serious problem (sorry, I just don’t think Christian girls should be wearing what amounts to stringy waterproof underwear outside). But if I wore my ‘modest’ beach getup to the office, it would also be a serious problem. Context!

This brings me to a pet peeve: girls wearing today’s version of a mini skirt, with shorts or leggings underneath ‘so they don’t have to worry about it.’ (Because of course, when men see a short skirt, their first question is “What exactly is that I’m glimpsing under there? Oh, it’s shorts? OHHH, okay. In that case I’m not turned on.”)

I am a young, straight female. Even I am distracted by short, low, out of context, or revealing items.

Think about this when you’re getting dressed: will this distract people who are trying to talk to me? When I’m trying to have an edifying conversation, will either women or men find themselves preoccupied with this “head-turning” item? Even leaving lust aside... think about ‘strange’ items, items that aren’t age appropriate, or items that we often call ‘conversation pieces’.

No, I’m not saying that if you ever get compliments, you are calling too much attention to yourself. I’m saying that if most people get done talking to you and the first thing they say is “she had cute shoes,” this might be a red flag. Are there any godly women you know who you want to be like? When you describe them to a friend, do you say “She’s on the cutting edge of fashion? Oh, and I think she really loves the Lord.”

There might be a reason for this.

And this, friends, is why I think I feel uncomfortable when I wear high heels. I’m a tall girl, and every single time I wear heels, I just feel... conspicuous. When I talk to people wearing heels, I feel that my opening statement to them is ‘HELLO. I’M TALL AND WEARING HEELS.’

So does this mean heels are immodest for me to wear? Sometimes, yes. I think so.

7.       No one is willing to graciously speak out

Homework for young women:

Find a godly older woman, have a serious conversation about modesty, and ask her to honestly assess specific items in your wardrobe.

If you’re married, ask your husband: what do I wear now that would have been hard on you when we were dating? Maybe he’ll be uncomfortable going on the record, but create an environment in which he knows he can talk to you about these things. Yes, he is proud of his attractive wife, but he is also proud that there are parts of her only he gets to ogle.

Homework for all godly women and husbands:

Women are mortified if you tell them they’re wearing something immodest. That’s just the truth. But we need to be willing to do it anyway.

Do it carefully, do it graciously. As a rule, women, be as ruthless as possible with yourself and as gracious as possible with others.  Don’t assume they know. Don’t assume they’re trying to trap your husbands. Behave the way Christians are supposed to behave and speak with them privately and lovingly.

Husbands, feel free to couch it in terms of "only I should be able to see you in that." This turns it into a holy marital compliment.

The purity of our men’s hearts, our women’s hearts, and our Christian witness as a whole is at stake. I think that’s worth a few uncomfortable conversations.

Letter to a friend on doubting your faith

By Justin Dillehay

[This is an edited copy of an email I wrote to a friend several years back. Names have been changed to protect the recipient's privacy. We had both recently read Tim Keller's book The Reason for God, because Kathy was doubting her faith.]

Hello, Kathy.

Earlier today I obtained a copy of Mr. Keller's book from the Putnam County Library so as to be able to discuss your questions more accurately. Considering the particular questions that seem to be sticking with you, I urge you to consider these points especially:

1. Doubt is a leap of faith just like faith is a leap of faith. There is such a thing as a "leap of doubt."

I just finished re-reading Keller's Introduction, and it seems to me that your interpretation is correct--it takes as much faith to doubt as it does to believe. But this is true precisely because doubt is belief. As he says on page xvii, "All doubts...are really a set of alternate beliefs."

Keller is saying that in a real sense there are no doubters.  There are only believers. No one believes nothing, because even nothing is something! To doubt A is to believe B.

For example, if I say, "The Bible cannot be God's infallible word to humanity because there are many books that make this claim and they all contradict each other," then I am also saying, "God (if he exists) is not capable of clearly communicating his mind to human beings."

In return, Keller would urge me to ask, 'What evidence do I have for believing this?' Even for you and me, communication is possible. You can talk to me, share your thoughts with me, and I am able to hear you, understand you, and share my thoughts with you in return. And this is wonderful! Now, as you and I both know, communication is not always easy. We often misunderstand one another. Lines get crossed, feelings get hurt, lies get told, and stories get repeated and exaggerated. Communication can be difficult, but it is certainly not impossible.

If you and I, then, as mere human beings, are capable of communicating our thoughts accurately to each other, then should it surprise us if God is also capable of accurately communicating his thoughts to us? Especially if, as he claims, we are made in his image? Should we be surprised that he is in fact the Master Communicator?

2. Just because people disagree about something doesn't mean it can't be true. There isn't a single statement made in the history of the world that hasn't been disagreed about.

Suppose I say, "We cannot know truth because there is so much disagreement about it." By saying this, I am also saying "If truth existed, everyone would agree on it." Again, Keller would challenge me to a) acknowledge my own alternate belief, and b) consider whether or not my belief is true.

Is it possible for something to be true even though millions of people disagree with it? If so, why would so many people refuse to believe something that was true? Does the Scripture address this question?

It does, and it seems to hold that man is capable of darkening his own mind with falsehood.

3. It's not actually humble to say that man is meaningless.

When I was at Vol State I took a geology class. For extra credit, I read and wrote a review of a book called Rocks of Ages by the paleontologist and agnostic Stephen Jay Gould. In one section of that book, Gould discussed this question: Considering how huge the universe is, how much (or how little) do human beings really matter?

He even quoted David's question, "When I consider your heavens...what is man, that you are mindful of him?" (Psalm 8:3-4) David's answer to this question was, "Yet you have made him [man] a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet..." (8:5-6).

Gould, however, regarded the Psalmist's answer as an example of how we arrogantly think that we matter so much when we really matter so little. Gould felt that his own answer to that question was a much more humble answer: that man was really just a meaningless accident in a huge universe without any purpose. According to Gould, man was ultimately no more important than anything else, and he ought to humbly admit it.

Admittedly, at first glance, Gould's view appears to be very humble. You and I are nothing! We don't matter at all! We are not the beloved objects of some God out there!

But, when you think about it, this means that Gould and you and I are free to do whatever we please. There is no one to tell us what to do. By appearing to bring man down to a humble position, Gould has effectively exalted mankind (including himself) to a position of final authority. This view places you and me in the same position that Scripture places God in.

Such a view may be a lot of different things, but is it really humble?

4. Belief is not for the weak.

Keller is urging us to "doubt our doubts." Perhaps I believe in absolute truth simply because I am weak and cannot live with uncertainty. But could it not also be true that the skeptic denies absolute truth simply because he doesn't like it and wants to be free to make his own truth? If I doubt or reject things that I have found comforting in the past, it's not enough for me to console myself with the thought that I am being brave.

It's not that simple. I must doubt my doubts.

I must consider the possibility that there might be less noble reasons for my doubt and rejection. If I refuse to consider both of these possibilities, then am I really brave? Perhaps Christianity is a crutch, but if I really am a weak, broken person, then isn't a crutch exactly what I need?

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Wrestling with hard questions is something I need to do better and more often. You can help me do that. And by God's grace, I hope I can help you, too. And as you wrestle, remember that you do not wrestle alone. Your brothers and sisters love you, and we will be here to listen to you and weep with you and pray for you and talk with you.

I would encourage you to persevere in reading Mr. Keller. You will find him worth listening to. And please keep up the discussion. Feel free to raise questions both with Keller and with me. Thank you for including me in your life on this matter.

You thank me for my time, but you don't really need to, since it's not really mine. If in two years our positions in this conversation are reversed, I trust you will do the same for me.

your fellow struggler,


Justin