The ignorance and humility of Jesus

by Justin Dillehay

Have you ever laughed at a joke you really didn't get, because you didn't want to look stupid? Have you ever found yourself spouting off on a subject you knew perfectly well you were too uninformed to speak to?

I have. More times than I care to remember. You wanna know why I do such silly things? Easy. Because I'm a braggart. Because I'm prideful. Because I don't want to appear more ignorant than I actually am.

But as with all my other sins, I find comfort in this: Jesus endured this same temptation, yet without sin.

Jesus knew what it was like to be ignorant, and yet he never shot off his mouth despite his ignorance.

Jesus wasn't a braggart.

"But wait a minute! What do you mean 'ignorant'?! Was't Jesus God?" Yes, he was. "Then doesn't that mean he was omniscient--that he knew everything?" No, it doesn't. If you don't believe me, just read Mark 13:32, where Jesus says, “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

"But if God is omniscient and Jesus is God, how could Jesus not be omniscient?" Because Jesus wasn't just God. He was also man. When the Word became flesh (John 1:14), he not only took upon himself a real human body, he also took upon himself a real human mind. And real human minds are not omniscient, just as real human bodies are not omnipresent.

And Mark 13:32 is simply the tip of the iceberg. We ought not to think that this was the only factoid that Jesus was ignorant of. On the contrary, given what the Gospels tell us about his Incarnation--how he began life as a baby and then "increased in wisdom and stature" (Luke 2:52)--rather than assuming knowledge until ignorance is proven, we would do better to assume ignorance until knowledge is demonstrated. Our default question shouldn't be "What all was Jesus ignorant of?" but rather "How did Jesus acquire the knowledge that he possessed?" (See our recent post entitled "Did Jesus have to learn his ABC's?" ).

In addition to all the natural ways he would have learned (his mother and 'father,' his rabbis, the Scriptures, personal experience), Jesus' closest teachers were his eternal Trinitarian helpers, his Father and the Holy Spirit. From his baptism onward, it becomes clear that Jesus was not only God's beloved Son, but also the great Prophet like unto Moses (Deut. 18:15; cf. John 6:14, Acts 3:22). And as a prophet, he was endowed by God with supernatural knowledge. He was truly a revealer of secrets. Just ask the woman at the well, and she'll tell you (John 4:17-19).

Many of us Christians often miss this. We who rightly believe in the deity of Christ often mistake Jesus' supernatural knowledge for infinite knowledge. We attribute to Jesus' divine omniscience what we ought to attribute to the revelation of his Father through the Holy Spirit. And as a result, we miss out on much of the glory of Christ. We fail to see that he lived his life as a man with limited knowledge in dependence on his Father.

And in this particular case, we fail to see how low Jesus stooped for us, and how humble he really was.

Here's what I mean by 'humble.' Think about what it means that Jesus was often ignorant yet always sinless. That his knowledge was limited to what he had learned through natural means along with what the Father had chosen to reveal to him, and yet he never once sinned with this tongue.

How did this happen? What did this demonstrate? In a word, humility.

An omniscient man can pontificate on every subject under the sun without going out of his depth. A man with limited knowledge can't...at least not without being an arrogant blowhard. What this has to mean is that Jesus refrained from speaking on subjects he knew was ignorant of.

And notice I say "subjects he knew he was ignorant of." Remember Mark 13:32? The verse that tells us that Jesus didn't have all the facts on eschatology? Remember who spoke that verse? That's right, it was Jesus himself. In other words, the reason we know that Jesus was ignorant of the timing of his return is because he (and Mark) told us. Which tells us that Jesus was conscious of his limitations.

It's not just that he didn't know; it's that he knew that he didn't know! And since he knew that he didn't know, he didn't pretend that he did. He didn't put on a show. He didn't try to appear more knowledgeable than he was.

How different from how we often behave! How often have I found myself making confident assertions about things I don't know squat about (1 Tim.1:7)! How often in conversation have I nodded fervently as if to say "I knew that already" when in fact I didn't. How many times have I "added my two cents," when in reality they were worth much less.

Not Jesus. Not once. Ever.

Not one idle word ever left his mouth. Not one inflated statement. Not one bit of hot air. Not one ignorant, know-it-all boast. Only what he knew he was competent to speak to. Only what he had read in God’s Word. Only what he had heard from his Father. Only what he knew to be true and honorable and just and pure and lovely and commendable. Otherwise, he kept his mouth shut, and let his words be few.

Our Lord was the humblest man who ever lived.

So let this mind be in us, which was also in Christ Jesus. Though he was in the form of God—though he had infinite knowledge of all things, and the right to pontificate on every subject—he emptied himself by taking upon himself the form of a servant, clothing himself in human ignorance and limitations, and governing his tongue as a humble servant of God.

The good news is this:

Jesus wasn't a braggart. And because of that, he can pardon and transform braggarts like us.

   

Are burqas immodest? ...Why unbelieving women dress immodestly

By Tilly Dillehay

Last month, I posted a piece called Are high heels immodest? (read here) in which I concluded, among other things, that sometimes they are. My ‘sometimes’ was predicated on context, individual style and build, and the heart of the wearer.

But that was really more of a side issue in the article; the main points were structured around ‘reasons Christian women who ought to know better dress immodestly’. These reasons included ignorance, insecurity, vanity, lack of love/ruthlessness, eyes full of the world, and yes, confusion about context.

This piece garnered a lot of positive and constructive responses. It also garnered a few that were somewhat less than constructive.*

All of these together have inspired this follow-up post, which is addressed mainly to the same Christian women addressed in the last one. The subjects, however, are different this time:

4 reasons why unbelieving women dress immodestly

1. They are too busy talking about feminism

Feminism as a social idea has affected the way we all think, even (and maybe especially) in the church. Main point for a feminist: men and women should be treated equally. They should get equal rights, equal respect, have equal pay, and stand on level ground when it comes to the sexual relationship.

What this translates into: men and women should be treated the same. Even when logic, nature, and every practical consideration screams men and women aren’t the same.

Good things about feminism: they don’t like when women are abused and men get away with it. They don’t like when women’s bodies are sold for profit (either in prostitution or in advertising) and they don’t like when women get blamed for things that men do. It rightly infuriates them, for instance, that there are women even now being circumcised right out of the ability to feel sexual pleasure—so that they won’t be unfaithful (this is done in parts of sub-Saharan and Northeast Africa, as well as, to a lesser extent, parts of Asia and the Middle East).

Feminists hate this kind of thing (and so, incidentally, do Christians; so, incidentally, does God, more than us and the feminists put together).

But here are other things they hate. They hate when anybody suggests that there are fundamental differences between men and women. They hate when anybody suggests that maybe there are fewer female CEOs because there are fewer women who want to be CEOs. They despise the idea that maybe there is a real sense in which it is healthy for one man to be married to one woman, and for that woman to intentionally and courageously follow the lead of that man.

They really, really hate the idea that maybe men are actually lookers by nature and women are beautiful by nature, and this is the reason (once it’s been twisted out of its good and natural purpose) why women keep selling themselves and men keep buying.

And they have a clear understanding that men are at fault for turning themselves into consumers of women. But they get themselves tied up in logical knots when they conclude that, therefore, women should try to make themselves emotionally and spiritually free to use men in the same way.

Also, in the context of modesty, they conclude that women should be free to go around in anything (or nothing) because it’s the man’s fault if that’s a problem for him.

2. They don’t understand the Fall

It’s natural for the women of the World (in the Biblical sense of the word nature) to believe that men and women are at war. According to the flesh, that’s exactly what men and women are at. It’s NATURAL, in fact, for men and women to be locked in a vice grip of impasse.

Remember the curse handed down to Eve. Not only is she given this awful (and so unfair!) task of painfully bearing children, which the man may or may not even help raise, but she is given this doozy of a curse: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

So her desire will be for her husband—the way a spider desires to truss up and devour her mate. But he will rule over her—the way a heavy handed Iranian husband controls and beats his wife.

Is this good? No. It’s sin. But we can’t deny the fact that it is so. Women nag men and long for them and obsess over them, and men control and abuse women. What’s special is not when you find women and men who are behaving this way; what’s really special is when you find men and women who aren’t.

And an unbelieving woman doesn’t just think there is a battle of the sexes going on; she KNOWS it. She sees it and feels it. She’s going to want to win.

So she’s going to use her body, if she can, and if that happens to be her weapon of choice. She may eventually realize, on a practical level, that this doesn’t actually give her an advantage. By this time, however, she’s often already played herself right into the hands of the heavy-handed man.  

But she will never, by nature, turn her heart another way and say “how can I live in such a way that I am NOT attempting to control men with my body?”

It will never occur to her.

3. They see no difference between Christian men and unconverted men

Yes, Christian men are made of dust, like every other man. But we know of another reality,  invisible, living in the chests of men of faith. The Holy Spirit.

There is a difference between the men out there who are Christians, and the men out there who aren’t. We have no reason to tempt any man, but we should be much more concerned about the eyes of our Christian brothers than we are about the Eyes of the World, et al.

Why?

Because Christian men are attempting to be holy, that’s why. They have a fighting shot. As sanctified souls, they are capable of making a covenant with their eyes. This is why we talk about ‘causing them to stumble’. You have to be standing upright in order to stumble.

One Christian woman responded to my post with a story about her experience in a city where a man harassed her when she was bundled up to her neck in the dead of winter and 8 months pregnant. She raised an excellent point.  

This is why burqas are no more a guard against lust than bikinis, depending on the man. (You could even say that depending on the woman, burqas could be immodest: don’t you think there are Middle Eastern women somewhere in the world right now who are flirting, mincing, and attempting to ‘catch’ some dude... while dressed to the nines in full coverup?)

4. They are concerned with ‘what are my rights?’ instead of ‘how can I bless?’

This is another issue of the Spirit. A man with the Holy Spirit has a weapon against the bent of his flesh towards abusing, using, and cowing to women. He is capable of serving instead of wrecking, loving instead of using, and leading instead of controlling.

A woman with the Holy Spirit can also do things that make no sense in the flesh.

If you are imbued with the Holy Spirit, you will be empowered to think in those terms, just as you will be empowered to excuse yourself from the Gender War, and empowered to see the feminist issue from more than one side.

A non-Christian woman responds to statements about dressing modestly by saying “why do I have to be the one to change? It’s their sin!” It makes sense that she would. This is how three year old children respond when they’re told to share. “Why do I have to be the one? It’s my toy!” It would take a superhuman effort for the average child to do something so unnatural as to yield to unfairness.

Superhuman—or, in other words—Spirit inspired.

 ----------------

I mentioned the bikini in that last post, and perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned specific items of clothing at all—in a way, it may have distracted from the major point being made. I don’t like them, no. But I have no clear cut biblical warrant for saying that my one piece is more justifiable than another woman’s bikini. What I can say is that we, as Christian women, ought not to let ourselves off the hook easily.

We are responsible to be stewards of these wonderful curvy bodies that God has seen fit to put us in. Responsible in a way that an unbelieving woman cannot even begin to understand.

Let’s take it seriously, and dress as we do all things—unto the Lord. Remember, we seek to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

----------------------

Footnote:

*Examples—Constructive feedback: “let’s talk about the fact that modesty practices are going to look different depending on culture and context, and certain rules shouldn’t be applied to every woman, at every time, in every place.”

Not so constructive: “Nude beaches in Europe are a good illustration of how healthy nudity can be for people, if you don’t make a big deal about it.... also, remember this— JESUS hung naked on the cross!”

I’m sorry, what?  ‘Jesus hung naked on the cross’, as an argument for why public nudity should be embraced? Are you familiar with the historical practice of crucifixion? Surely, if you thought about this for even a second you’d remember that people were crucified naked because they were being shamed. Jesus did not hang naked in order to liberate the nude beaches in the south of France.

How to repent like a prodigal

by Justin Dillehay 

One of the most neglected teachings in the whole Bible today (at least here in the States) is the doctrine of repentance.

How many sermons have you heard about it lately? In some ways, it's much easier to talk about "believing" than "repenting." After all, few people today have a problem with faith (provided they get to choose what they believe and who they believe in). But when you talk about repentance, you invariably have to talk about sin, because sin is what we have to repent of. And in our increasingly libertarian, relativistic culture, telling people to repent of their sin sounds more and more like telling them to give up their liberty or deny their identity.

So I repeat, one of the most neglected biblical teachings today is the doctrine of repentance. This is an unfortunate omission. Because Scripture presents repentance as extremely important, even necessary for salvation (Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 2:28; 17:30; Mark 1:14-15).

But what does repentance look like? Perhaps a story will help.

Jesus provides us with a good illustration of repentance in the parable of the prodigal son (or at least in the first half of it). So let me reproduce Luke 15:11-24, and then close with a few bullet-points on repentance from the story:

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. (Luke 15:11-24 ESV)

 I want to point out four aspects of repentance that can be seen in the prodigal son.

(1) Repentance was necessary for him to be saved. 
While he was out blowing his dad’s money on prostitutes, the parable says “He was lost.” The parable does not encourage us to think that the prodigal would have been saved regardless of whether he had left the pigpen and come home. And if you’re in a similar position right now, the Bible doesn’t encourage you to think you will be saved regardless of whether or not you repent.

(2) Repentance includes a godly sorrow and healthy self-loathing for sin.
The prodigal was sorry for how he had treated his father, because he knew his father deserved better. You see this when he says “I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.”

Now I call this godly sorrow and healthy self-loathing because there is such a thing as ungodly sorrow and unhealthy self-loathing. Why do I say that his sorrow and self-loathing were godly and healthy? Because he got up out of the pig-pen and went home to his father. He didn’t wallow around in his sin forever. An ungodly, suicidal, Judas-like sorrow would have said, “I’m so wicked that I don’t deserve to be called my father’s son, so I’m just going to stay here and starve to death. I’m not going home because that would be too good for me. I deserve to be punished.”

A healthy, self-loathing, prodigal-like repentance says, “Yes I deserve to be punished! No I don’t deserve to be called my father’s son! But I’m going home anyway.”

And while we're on the subject, repentance confesses its own sin, not the sins of others. The prodigal didn't point out the failings of his father. He didn't confess his older brother's sin. And he didn't come home with a sense of entitlement, as though "He is my dad, after all, so he really ought to let by-gones by by-gones. After all, no one's perfect!" This is not how true repentance talks. True repentance says "I am no longer worthy. Make me a hired servant."

(3) Repentance resolves to walk differently in the future. 
He left the pigpen behind and made plans to work as his father’s hired servant. In other words, he wasn’t planning on going back. He didn’t keep the pig farmer’s address or the prostitutes' phone number. He turned his back on it all, and staked all his hopes on being received by his father.

(4) Repentance is accompanied and enabled by faith in the Father's goodness
What made him think repentance was even a possibility? Why did he feel like going home was even an option after what he had done? Answer: he was trusting in the goodness and mercy of his father. Even his hired servants have more than enough bread!

He said to himself, “My father ought to run me off as soon as he finds out I’m coming, but I know what he’s like and I don’t believe he’ll do that. He’s good. He’s merciful. He treats his hired servants with kindness. So maybe, just maybe, he’ll be willing to let me work for him as a hired servant. He might let me pay him back slowly all the money I blew.”

Repentance without faith is presumption. If we understand how holy God is and how offensive sin is to him, then we will never dream of repenting--unless, of course, we also see the light of his glory in the face of Christ Jesus. If God were not holy, then sleeping with prostitutes would be nothing to repent of (which is why many people think they don't have to). But if God were not merciful, there'd be no need to waste our time trying to repent.

The Law shows us why we need to repent, but only the gospel shows us why we can.

God has a Son, too. And that Son was no prodigal. But in love God gave that Son for ungrateful, fornicating sons like you and me. And in love that Son left his home and came to the far country of this world, becoming obedient unto death.

This is the gospel. This is the warrant for repentance. Not that the Father doesn't mind his sons being prodigal, but that the Father has dealt with our sin in the person of his Son.

So feel compelled to repent. And feel free to repent. Whoever leaves the pig-pen and comes home will never cast out.

If you want to see what repentance looks like, then look at the prodigal son. If you want to see what God's mercy looks like, well, there's a man in that parable who runs to meet his son in a very undignified fashion...

5 things I wish I could say to every 16-year-old Homeschooled Girl

By Tilly Dillehay

When I turned 16, I had been homeschooled my entire life. I was finished with my high school work, and preparing to go to college in the fall.

I bought a car with cash that I’d saved myself; I’d already worked at several different jobs. I was ambitious and creative, and had been given an academic scholarship to a private institution.  I had never kissed a boy, although I was a heavy crusher from an early age.

The day my parents helped me move my things into the dorm, I felt that my entire life was about to embark, building into one great big crescendo. I thought that I was about to overachieve my way into a distinguished and exceptional life. I had vague ideas in my mind about popularity, taken from movies, and had decided it was both possible and necessary to change my personality and become an ‘it’ girl.

Freshman year was hard on my beliefs about myself and the world. Sophomore year was harder. Graduation, at the age of 20, with no job prospects, no fiancé, and nothing on the horizon, was much worse.

I could fill a book with the things I didn’t know at the age of 16, as, I suspect, could most of you—homeschooled or not, male or female.

But there are a few false ideas that tend to clump around the minds of homeschooled girls in particular. Here are five things I wish I could say to every 16-year-old homeschooled girl:

1.       You’re going to need a skill.

When parents make the (commendable) decision to homeschool their children, “protection” is often one of the implicit reasons. They want to have control over their kids’ education, and they want to have more time to help them build a worldview. They want a more family-oriented life, and they don’t want their kids to waste time standing in line and doing busy work.

These are all wonderful reasons to homeschool. And homeschoolers are more likely, on average, to be skilled in things like cooking and cleaning and maybe even entrepreneurship.

But you might also find out at some point, homeschooled girl, that you have an underdeveloped work ethic. You are used to being able to do things on your own schedule, or at least on your parents’. You’re used to studying in pajamas, maybe. And I know you probably know how to work hard and are smart and efficient and self-motivated. But you’re used to being the exception to rules that apply to other people—other people have to get on the bus. Other people have to be at school eight hours. Not you.

You probably say things like ‘I just want to be a wife and mom’. I’ve said the same, and for the record, this is still my favorite plan for my life. But there are two reasons why you cannot let this goal get you off the hook for learning other skills:

a.       You don’t know if God is going to give you a husband and children. You just can't assume things that haven't been promised. 
      
       Also, I don’t want you or anybody to get married simply because this is your only career aspiration and time is running out. That is a recipe for bad decision making—and everybody knows that when we don’t have something interesting to occupy us, we are bound to get more desperate (and more hasty). Yes, I know you’re probably courting, and yes, your dad is going to help you with your decision making. But he can’t make you appear interesting, productive, and engaging to a man if you aren’t interesting, productive, and engaged.

b.      Even if you do get married, exactly at the age you intended, to exactly the sort of man you envisioned (unlikely, on all counts), you will need something else to occupy you. I want you to be the sort of woman who can do business with other people, who has friends and interests of her own, and (yes!) who has the ability to make money.

Maybe you were raised in a family where mom was at home and dad worked. I was. And maybe this is how you’ll end up. I hope to. But in the meantime, do this math: your childbearing and rearing years will be only about 20-30 of your total lifespan. Your lifespan will probably be 70+ years. Do you understand that that means you’ll have to find other ways of occupying yourself for 40-50 years of your life?

This is not the year 1905 anymore. Keeping house is not an all-encompassing job anymore. We have dishwashers and vacuum cleaners, so when you’re done cooking a meal and cleaning the bathroom, you’re still going to have about twelve hours a day of work and leisure time.

What are you going to do with it?

Why not find a career that you are actually interested in and pursue it? Not half-heartedly, not as a ‘backup’, but as a way to bring value to the world around you? Your husband will delight in your resourcefulness. Your life will be richer and fuller. You will experience the satisfaction of knowing that you have done excellent work, at an ordinary job, for a long time.

Work is sanctifying. Take it seriously.

2.       You’ll need to guard your heart—but there are no rules which will ensure this if you don’t care about defrauding men.

I was raised with the understanding that I was going to do courtship, rather than aimlessly dating. And I like the courtship model of accountability and intention, although I don’t particularly care what it’s called. (When my husband and I started getting to know each other, I’m pretty sure we called it dating. Turns out, this didn’t kill the purity of the relationship.)

But as many times as it was pounded into me growing up—“guard your heart” “guard your heart” “guard your heart”—there was another side of the coin that I somehow missed.

I was never taught about treating the men well.

I wasn’t concerned with treating men well; as far as I knew, this was beside the point. The point was me—my heart, my needs, my rules. I was concerned with feeling good. I was concerned with not crossing certain lines—these lines were almost arbitrarily chosen, and had to do with physical contact and verbal commitment (‘don’t tell boys you like them’ ‘don’t date boys’ ‘don’t kiss or hold hands’).

So I would spend long “platonic” hours with boy after boy after boy, but—with no concern for their well-being—I had no reason to choose aloneness and boredom over excitement and game-play.

Disclaimer: at my level of overall immaturity and spiritual blindness, little could’ve been done to protect me or the young men who came around. But what bothers me about this time is how very self-righteous I was. I thought that because I never told these boys we were dating, and because we never did this or that physical thing, I was a pure girl. In reality, I was about as emotionally defrauding and cheap as any run-of-the-mill flirtatious girl you ever met. My rules failed me, and utterly confused a long succession of guys.

And my girlfriends weren’t fooled. They knew a flirt when they saw one.

3.       You’ve been mercifully protected and allowed to grow—but don’t respond by worshipping safety and comfort.

Homeschooled girls are usually raised under a philosophy of protection. This is as it should be; the World is a beast and will happily eat women alive. Even feminists know this (although they respond by preemptively throwing themselves to the wolves... more on that in another post).

So yes, I support the Biblical mindset that protects children until they are grown and protects women under male headship. But there is a healthy flipside to this that needs to be remembered, encouraged, and cherished.

Remember boldness.

Boldness is a one of the great Christian virtues. There is a kind of valor that gets lost and crushed a little bit if a girl hears for a lifetime that ‘getting hurt’ is the worst thing that can happen to her. ‘Getting hurt’—for the right reasons, and in the right ways—is one of the great glories of the Christian life. We are promised to be reviled and persecuted; ‘getting hurt’ for the faith is sometimes a litmus test of our genuineness.

Sometimes, it seems to me that the conservative homeschooled vision is a screen for laziness and the idolatry of comfort. Women and girls hear for a lifetime that they are under the protection of men, and they use it as an excuse to cultivate timidity, cowardly forms of love (see one example in #2, above), and ignorance.

What will happen if you decide to go to the mission field, Christian homeschooled girl? Will you be able to reconcile your vision for your life with the physical and emotional dangers you’d face there? Do you think, honestly, that if you choose to live your life as an evangelist at home instead of a missionary abroad, that your life ought to be dramatically safer and more comfortable? Do you think that you won’t need the power of the Spirit if you live in the shelter of well-kept home?

When it’s your turn to parent, remember the point of protecting your children: protect them only AS PART OF THE TRAINING PROCESS that will prepare them for battle.

4.       Don’t assume your salvation.

I’m not trying to turn you into a morbidly introspective navel-gazer, but I don’t want to breeze over this point.

You are the daughter of parents who homeschool. That does not mean that you are a daughter of the King.

You have been self-identifying as a Christian since you could lisp the words that your parents taught you to say.  You have always wanted to please, and you have always wanted to do well. You believe in God, probably. Perhaps you believe the Bible is true.

Don’t assume that your heart has been transformed by the gospel until the scaffolding (your family) is off and you see what the fruit really looks like.

That’s all I’m saying. Don’t assume you aren’t ‘real’ just because you’re under your parent’s roof still. Don’t act like nothing you do matters now because you aren’t out there, inspecting your own grown-up fruit.

Just don’t assume at all. If you are a transformed follower of Christ, it is just as much by a miracle of grace—and just as much a process of Earth-defying repentance—as when a prostitute turns to Christ and is redeemed.

5.       You’ll always be a Homeschooled Girl, on some level... but you won’t always feel like one.

This is a minor point, but I just wanted to mention it.

Right now, being Homeschooled is probably one of the top five things that define you. It’s one of the first questions you get asked when you meet new people, and you carry it around with you—for good or for ill—as a major facet of who you are.

I just wanted you to know, 16-year-old, that you’ll always feel an instant connection to other people who love the things you’ve loved from girlhood: your Annes of Green Gables, your Secret Gardens, your Elsie Dinsmores, your American girls, and your Jane Austens.

But you also won’t always identify yourself as The Homeschooled Girl.

In ten years, this will be more like a random fact about yourself that you tell a friend months after meeting her. “Really?” she’ll say. “I didn’t know!”

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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. 

*********************************************************************************

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."