Life, Media,Truth

The following is integral to Pages preceding this one – for this date.  The ideas are related to faith, to faithful commitment, to the call of God to search during mortal life for his will and direction for the person of faith.  Growth to spiritual maturity is the human ideal approved of God.  The Apostle Paul accented the matter in the Epistle to the Philippians.  No mortal will have all life concepts lined up perfectly.  Some will be at a distance, near or far, but the heavenly citizenship rests for entrance on the faith acceptance of the gospel as set forth in the words of Christ.  John 3:16 and 5:24 are straightforward statements of the redemptive experience.  Although follow-up is important, even affecting the course of cultures and nations, the main point relates to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ that is life changing for persons receiving it.  In follow-up there will be some tension related to various doctrines, life conduct, carnality, temptation, and for serious Christians wrestling with intellectual byways related to contradictions, change, paradoxes, attitudes, and a dozen or so other challenges to faith and life.  These tensions are to be met in prayer, in faithfulness, in awareness of spiritual growth and human creativity for good and ill, in reliance upon the Holy Spirit to aid processes and persons.  That includes some assurance that Scripture has been read sufficiently well to outline a holistic personal Christian experience for any person in any culture.

For those moving on, both spiritually and intellectually, forward from the fundamental matter of Christian faith in the redemptive gospel, there will be problems that the coaster person may never face.  Having affirmed their faith, some Christians never really encounter the larger intellectual and emotional factors, the sophisticated understanding that grows out of finding answers to serious life questions, and the nature of God’s program for mankind.  Many Christians simply want to live life, do their work, follow faithfulness and faith context, and sense the blessing of God for their families.  They try to fit in as they perceive the pastor and their own devotion instructs them.  Scripture offers many of them – perhaps the woman taken with the issue of blood touching the hem of the garment of Jesus; perhaps Mary, Martha and Lazarus; perhaps Nicodemus; perhaps some of those the Apostle Paul listed in Romans 16. The list can be extended.  The concept appears in literature throughout the centuries.  The gracious Jewish young woman for whom Ivanhoe would become her knight projected to him that she was unprepared to offer a defense of her faith although she had faith.  Those who do go on to weightier concerns often trouble persons of simple faith, and some persons who may be weak in faith.  The problem of conflict is born, and many drop away from childlike faith, but many follow through in that context throughout their maturity.  We may be, in this paragraph addressing the faith experience of the mass of Christians, even that of the mass of any faith.  They are generally not very verbal about their faith, but hope the model of their lives will verify who they are and what they believe.  Like the bird that finds safety in the cleft of the rock avoiding the dangers of flight in the confusion of the storms outside, they live simply, devotionally, happily even securely – in the cleft of the rock.  They even have a favorite hymn extolling the order of personal peace in the rock’s cleft.

Relative to competition between privacy to personal inner life and faith, and that of social involvement including apologetics in a world with inevitable differences, perhaps conflict or toleration, there is a broad spectrum of interpretation.  Writing about life’s competition: D. L. Mayfield reviewing On Immunity, by Eula Biss in Books and Culture, wrote: We cannot afford to dismiss the vulnerable, we cannot afford the luxury of self-interest . . . to localize our fears.  We are called to recognize that none of us are granted immunity.  Greater than any myth of self-preservation, we have a distinct theology: we are all citizens both in the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God. And it is not safe; but it is a very good place to be.  The author is addressing Christians.  We are to function, even in conflict, to be acceptant and protective of those living civilian life in our spiritual warfare, and they are to be tolerant of those who use the weapons of Scripture, thought and engagement in the peaceful (free) seeking of spiritual truth.  In approaching complexity of life for thought and conduct, God gave us both the priesthood and the laity from among his children.  We believe, while in search for truth.  Seek to read substantive Christian printed materials.