Experience In Imperfection

At this writing I am away from my home for a week, at the home of my younger daughter and her husband who are celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their ministry in Coronado, California.  Their schedules are extensive.  I am graciously released from being entertained, so to be permitted to do what I like best to do – write to young men and women, faithful students searching life meaning in a specific value orientation that I believe to be in faithful biblical context.  Another benefit of these days is that I browse through the library my hosts have built, so to revel in the ideas, ancient and modern, that have impacted (or ought to have impacted) persons as individuals and persons in groups (society).  I apply tests to all this in some way identified with Christian Scripture and appropriate human experience (belief and conduct).

This morning I was arrested almost immediately in my daily diggings with a statement from Gerald L. Schroeder’s book, The Science of God.  He began the 11^th Chapter as follows: Why Bad (and Good) Things Happen, and followed that with a quote from Christopher Marlowe in, The Jew of Malta: There is no sin but ignorance.  Ignorance is the breeding ground of error, and error is the source of sin.  In biblical Hebrew, the generic word for sin is het, which means to err or to miss the mark.  It does not mean to do evil. Schroeder then begins a new paragraph: Though het, error is not evil in itself, it may bring evil in its wake. With this he quotes from Genesis 4:1-5 & 8 to launch his treatment in the chapter.  All this is warming to my understanding in my truncated treatments of sin.  Although sin is real, it is a word too that is unpopular in its implications for all persons and covers a variety of meanings nearly all negative except when used in humor that reflects twists in meaning.  My meaning in use of the word ignorance may not be Schroeder’s.

My reader may remember that I love perusing books, specifically this one at the moment, but what I have gained thus far would lead me to sense Schroeder and I would enjoy long conversation in bandying questions back and forth so to find agreement about the factors of sin and salvation, about the human situation in the context of nature, of truth and fiction, of sin and righteousness.  Our purpose would be to gain resolution to our most important questions about the destiny of human life, which is to say the destiny of self-conscious life.  Animals appear not to have self-consciousness.  It is my biblical view that all human beings bear the image of God in self-conscious life.  In the story of the first family the image was sullied leading to a break with God and inviting the ensuing rebellion in relationship to God. To regain the force of that image, the only image that God will approve, there must be some plan of reconciliation.  It is found in penitence for the condition, and an acceptance of the plan from the creator with a commitment to righteousness relating to the nature of the Father in holiness.  This is holy adoption.

I return to the humbleness of my hours today, writing about my experience and the seeming infinite number of writings of other persons, especially Christian seekers of reconciliation truth.  There is no possible way one can become sufficiently competent in the hundred or so themes that press on my mind.  I recently wanted to read about silence.  Early in my reading I encountered a serious author who had found more than six hundred pieces, registered titles on Silence.  We can be sure there are more.  These forays inform me that I must be clear about anything, either affirmative or negative, about the God/mankind relationship, important to God and absolutely vital for mankind.  I do not want to miss the mark.  I want to know the fundamentals of life related to both common and divine grace.  So it is that I make forays into the thickets of knowledge so to learn about anything that violates the holy nature of God, and offers reconciliation for broken human relationship.  To do so, I believe in faith that I will not miss the mark.  That is achieved, in Christ, seen as invitation to him to indwell my life.  In this is biblical hope.  Gained there is nothing that will interfere with the ultimate peace and life God has prepared for his children, born of nature’s creation in his creative acts, and adopted in the beloved person for heavenly citizenship. God is our Father, first in creation, but gathering back the prodigal race in a plan of adoption related to faith focused on Christ.