Church/Evidence/Nature

Pope Francis was installed in his office in 2013.  He was one of the favorites among the Cardinals in the election of the previous Pope, but did nothing but discourage his colleagues from electing him.  He acquiesced on the next election, and began a popular and open pontificate that has gained world-wide attention and approval.  His task is both simple and difficult.  It requires a sweeping effort to change the leadership and procedures in the Vatican (the difficult part), and the declaration of humane concerns to solutions (the easy part).  It is understood that the style that relates him closely to the common people (easy part even if fatiguing) does not necessarily mean that he will be successful (becoming difficult to be gained) in his laudatory effort.  He appears to be doing the kind of thing that Jesus would do if he were on earth and physically active in the work of God through common grace – a standard of fairness to all persons. (Common grace is often referred to in these Pages as God at work for the benefit of all persons in the mortal life context of human beings.  Divine grace is spiritual overlay related to those persons following the order of Christ in spiritual redemption identifying Christians in the immortal context.) 

Mortal right (righteousness followed in nature) is for all. (Proverbs 14:34)  Divine right belongs to those who choose it by faith related to Christ and surrendered to the plan and will of God that incorporate the factors of common grace that God included in human creation.  Much of common grace has been distorted by the concepts and acts of persons who have violated it for their own purposes.  Pope Francis has made it a major part of his pontificate to recover from these losses.  In his visits featuring an address to a major meeting in Paris during September/October, 2014, he began with Albania and strongly noted to the world that this once openly atheistic nation had relented and offered religious freedom – and that in a context where there is peaceful and cooperative effort of various religions to benefit the people for the uplift of a poverty-riven nation.  The Pope’s accent for his travels began with a small and needy nation over the large and conflicting ones was in itself taken as an act of change for improving a troubled world.  The Pope identifies with the poor and their families.  Jesus worked in the same pattern, refusing to identify himself with the privileged groups who may have benefitted from the poor.  (This does not deny that Jesus and the Apostles had friends among affluent persons who helped them advance their itinerant ministries.)

It will be interesting to follow the fresh emphasis of ministry in common grace to see if it has emphasis in the spiritual ministry of evangelism, and the addition of divine grace to human beings.  Until ministry to mankind for right to all persons (common right) is made motive for the larger context of the redemptive context (divine right), the effort is temporary in that mortal life is temporary – ending in death.  Scripture proposes that life continuance is a spiritual factor known as the blessed hope. (Romans 8:24-25; 15:15; Colossians 1:23, 27)  Hope in this meaning is immortality.  The Church obligation is to gain the offer of application of spiritual grace through the gospel that forms an individual acceptable to God.  This was the accent of the Apostles, dramatically illustrated in Scripture, and through priests, ministers, missionaries, and lay persons, throughout the centuries since the visitation and departure of Jesus Christ.  He offers the legacy of ongoing life for those embracing spiritual grace as defined in the New Testament.  Its verification is not really found in any list of proofs, but in the faith and experience of the individual person.  The proofs of nature assist in this experience, but those proofs are shifted from the presuppositions about God that differ from the presuppositions about nature and secular humanism.  Presupposition is necessary to all life.  The proof of Christianity is related to persuasion related to holy faith, accented by the effectiveness of its tenets of truth to righteousness, the models of faithful adherents, and the awareness of spiritual hope to fruition.  The writer of the 19^th Psalm accented a vital point about evidence of God.  It is above language.  It is seen in the heavens (creation) because that evidence is the same no matter the culture, language or sophistication of the people experiencing it.  Its meaning can be distorted or misunderstood.  Without the presupposition that creation demands divine intelligence for origin rather than chance faith falters in us.  We risk for God.