…Why would you want to do this? Perhaps some important event has happened, such as a surgery for your friend, but you do not know the outcome yet. It makes a difference to know that God hears and has heard your prayer from eternity past. Scripture may not tell us directly that prayer can affect the past, but it describes a God who is free to act in response to his creatures in any way he wishes. It makes a difference for us to know that God transcends time and that nothing restricts his knowledge, power, or sovereignty. We cry out to a God who hears and knows us fully (Psalm 139:1-4,15-16) and who has the power to answer us.
It makes a difference for us to know that prayer is powerful (see James 5:16, “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective). One of the trademark phrase of the pastor at our old church was “much prayer, much power; little prayer, little power; no prayer, no power.” I fully believe this – prayer is a powerful and effective method that God uses to act in history through his people. Through prayer we can move the very hand of God – we can heal broken lives and bring hope to the poor and oppressed – we can do something to make a difference in Pakistan and Sudan and India. Through prayer we are drawn into God’s story in a more significant way; the role played by God children is expanded, and this glorifies God all the more. Both Christ and the Spirit intercede for us before the Father (Romans 8:26,33), who knows our every thought and need and is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). Because of God’s character, we know that he will do what is right (Genesis 18:25).
Lastly, it is important to remember that we are commanded to pray in Scripture, and that prayer is assumed to be part of our lives as Christians (Proverbs 15:8,29, Matthew 6:5-13, Romans 12:12, Ephesians 6:18, Colossians 4:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:17). This is reason enough to seek God in prayer. Furthermore, prayer is not only a means for us to change the world, but a way in which God changes us. As we seek to know God by speaking to him in prayer, he reveals himself to us more and more. Just as we grow closer to any person by talking to them, so we grow to know God by seeking him in prayer, and thus we become more like him and more who we were meant to be – the image bearers and children of God.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Reasons to Pray
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Can Prayer Affect the Past?
…If God created the world and ordained future events in light of our future prayers, which he foreknew, might he not ordain some event in light of a prayer that would occur after it just as he often ordains future events in light of prayers said before them? That is, could it be possible to affect the past through prayer?* Consider this: you know your friend died yesterday, but you do not know whether or not he was a believer. Is it reasonable to say, “Lord, may it be that he knew you”? Or perhaps you know nothing of the accident in which he died, and you pray that he would come to know God although he is in fact already dead. At first you might think this kind of prayer could not be effective because the past is already set in stone, and you cannot change it. But perhaps God has already answered your foreknown prayer in past events which are not yet known to you. God transcends time, and his actions in a temporal world need not be bound by time – why should God wait for us to pray in order to take action in answer to our prayers?
The important thing is that you do not know how God may have acted in the past to answer your present prayer. The real issue is not the time of the answered prayer, but our knowledge. It is an epistemological issue. Consider, hypothetically, that you knew, with 100% certainty, what would be the outcome of some event in the future. It would be pointless to pray, “Lord, may it not be so,” because you would be praying for a logical contradiction. Complete knowledge of future events in this way is not a realistic possibility, but I give this example to show that it is not an issue of time, but human knowledge. Although all of history is predestined and set in stone according to God's redemptive plan, we pray (in addition to other reasons) because we do not see the outcome. Although past events have already occurred, we may not know what happened, and because of this we can pray…
*I mean effect the past, not change it from what it “had been.” That is, I mean causing the past to be what it always was by praying to God. And perhaps “cause” is too strong a word – I am not sure. When we pray, we are not praying that God would change his plans, but that they would be carried out and his will done.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Prayer, Divine Action, and Creation
…This idea of a divine foreknowledge that is complete and integrates every part of reality in light of every other part, and all in light of who God is, also provides an answer to the objection that God cannot answer our prayers without “intervening” in the world at the present moment and breaking the laws of physics so that our prayers are answered. This need not be true. Rather, if God foreknows our prayers as well as his answers from eternity past, he can build his answers into the creation of the world. He can structure the initial physical conditions of the universe at the Big Bang such that a causal “web” is begun that will end in our answered prayers. God can answer us here and now by acting at the foundation of the world (see “Theology, Causation, and Quantum Mechanics”). This is not to say that this world is deterministic and that there is no room for God to “intervene” here and now. God certainly may do that, but he need not act only in that way – he is a much bigger God, and his sovereignty over his creation is probably more extensive than we realize. Everything that happens in the world was in part set by God at creation…
Read More...Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Effective Prayer to a God Who Foreknows
The whole concept of prayer to an omniscient and omnipotent God can be difficult to grasp. If God has exhaustive foreknowledge and had all of history planned out from the foundation of the world, what reason could there be for human prayer? How can prayer be effective if the future is already known to God and ordained by God? It might seem that God leaves no room for himself to respond to our prayers.
The problem with this view of prayer is not that God’s knowledge and power is thought to be too great for there to be room for prayer, but rather that God is thought of as less knowing and less powerful than he really is. Let me explain. The mindset that says, “prayer is pointless if God has it all laid out in his mind” assumes that God does not also foreknow our prayers and is not big enough to work our prayers into the rest of what he has ordained. It assumes that when we pray, God can only respond, “sorry, I’ve already decided what will happen – there’s no room for effective prayer on your part.” This need not be true at all. On the contrary, there is no reason why God cannot foreknow our causally effective prayers and integrate them into the rest of his plan. God ordains the future according to his purpose, but he also ordains it in light of our prayers, which are foreknown from eternity as well.* The whole of reality is a sort of interwoven web – any given thread may depend on others, but every thread is fully dependent on the Grand Weaver. All is ordained in light of who God is.
Consequently, we can pray knowing both that God’s answer is already set and that our prayer is causally effective. It is causally effective because God ordained it to be so according to his eternal plan – God appointed us to make a difference through prayer. We can even prayer for the salvation of others, knowing both that God has already chosen his elect and that he has ordained our prayers and evangelistic efforts as the means for their salvation. Predestination and missions are fully compatible.
It is also important remember that our prayers only affect God’s actions because he himself decided that was how things would be. In certain passages in Scripture, God responds to his people by doing something other than what he had said beforehand he would do. It seems that he changes his mind, but he only acts differently because he is responding to the prayers of his people, which he foreknew. Indeed, it is hard to imagine God Almighty, the Lord of heaven and earth, changing his mind…
*This does not mean we are mere pawns or robots in a deterministic world. Some see a connection between foreknowledge and predetermination, but I do not see any reason for making that connection. Why should God's foreknowledge restrict human freedom of choice? Is God so small that he could not foreknow our free actions?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Death and Resurrection: The Center of Christianity
"The Problem of Death": thinking of resurrection to eternal life and victory over death through the cross of Christ as a possible answer to philosophy's quest to understand human death:
- The Mystery of Death: Philosophy's Greatest Problem
- Victory over Death in the Cross
- "Blessed Spiritual Death to Self"
- Christianity's Answer to the Problem of Death
- There Is Always Hope, Even in Death
- Resurrection to Eternal Life
- Death and Resurrection, Part 1
- Death and Resurrection, Part 2
- Death and Resurrection, Part 3
- Death and Resurrection, Part 4
- Death and Resurrection, Part 5
- Death and Resurrection, Part 6
- Death and Resurrection, Part 7
- Death and Resurrection, Part 8
Reflections on the pattern of death and rebirth in C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces, and especially Perelandra:
- Part 1: A Signpost for the Cross
- Part 2: Christ Figures in Perelandra and Narnia
- Part 3: A Central Turning Point
- Part 4: Explosive Redemptive Effects
- Part 5: The Importance of "Vicariousness"
- Part 6: Death and Rebirth: "The Very Formula of Reality"
Friday, August 15, 2008
Evidence for the Resurrection: Youtube Videos
A couple Youtube videos on the historical evidence for Christ's physical resurrection from the dead:
Here is the first part of a lecture by Gary Habermas on the historicity of the resurrection, and in particular on what we can learn from what Paul says in Galatians about his conversion and his meetings with the disciples in Jerusalem.
Here's the first part of a conversation about the resurrection between Habermas and Antony Flew, a former atheist who is now at least a deist.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Death and Resurrection, Part VIII
…Eternal life and fullness of joy is offered to us, but it is only through death and suffering that we can come to it. It is only through losing ourselves in the One who gave himself unto death for us that we can find our true identities – in Christ. The road to resurrection must pass through the valley of death. But in the end death is overturned and defeated – it serves the greater purpose of making the resurrected life even more full of joy! And that is the beauty of death and resurrection. Death is, in every way, necessary in order for the life that follows to be most full and most complete. We must die to ourselves, even suffer, in order to know and rejoice in Christ most fully. Physical death must come upon the human race, and all of creation in a way, in order for redemption and the new creation to be complete. Christ must die in order for the Great Story to be made perfect with the Great Eucatastrophe of his resurrection. This teaching saturates the New Testament in so many ways, and if it so fills God’s Word of revelation to us and his own Great Story, we ought to embrace it as a reality in our own lives. Let us give up the prideful search for self-glorification and recognize who we are – mere creatures, fallen and sinful every one of us. Let us seek to know Christ by recognizing our sinfulness and brokenness, and our utter dependence on God, on whom all reality is centered and for whom we were made. Let us turn to the humbling and rich truth of the gospel and the cross of Christ, seeking to know him and the power of his resurrection, even sharing his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible we may attain the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:11). Resurrection is coming. Sin and death are swallowed up in the victory of God, and after the passing of a mere vapor we will be raised imperishable and immortal (1 Corinthians 15:52-57), but let us not forget that even now God is raising us from the dead.
Read More...Friday, August 8, 2008
Death and Resurrection, Part VII
…Most importantly, Christ emphasized the theme of death and resurrection in the lives of his followers:
- “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” – Matthew 16:24-25
- “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” – John 12:24*
*See also 1 Corinthians 15:36, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” Read More...
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Death and Resurrection, Part VI
…This theme of pain leading to greater joy, and perhaps, more generally, the theme of death and resurrection, is present in psychologist Larry Crabb’s book Inside Out. Crabb focuses on the idea that in order to change deeply from the inside out into mature believers who love God and love others more fully, we must take a good hard look at our weaknesses and failures and the unsatisfying nature of this life. Our deepest longings cannot and will not be satisfied in this life and our closest human relationships will ultimately leave us disappointed. We are sinful, weak, and fallen people, and we will face pain and suffering. Only when we embrace the reality of our unsatisfied longings and see the sin that corrupts us at the core will we begin to change. We must stop protecting ourselves from the harsh reality of a fallen world. Seeing ourselves as desperate sinners and this world as a fallen, broken place will help us to fix our eyes on God, who alone can heal us and fulfill our desires. Indeed, we need to be changed at the core – a transformation and renewal of our hearts. This, I think, is part of the death to self, as are both humble awareness of our sin and the necessary suffering we face. Crabb emphasizes, though, that real change is possible here and now – by passing through disappointment and pain we can come to a deeper joy in Christ. And just as only God was powerful enough to raise Christ from the dead, so only God can perform such a great work in us, who have fallen so far.
Tim Keller pursues a similar idea chapter twelve, “The (True) Story of the Cross,” of The Reason for God. Just as there is a cost to following Christ, there is a cost to forgiving others as he forgave us. Forgiveness, writes Keller,
“means refusing to make [others] pay for what they did. However, to refrain from lashing out at someone when you want to do so with all your being is agony. It is a form of suffering…You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself…It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a kind of death. Yes, but it is a death that leads to resurrection instead of the lifelong living death of bitterness and cynicism…[C]ostly forgiveness…always feels far worse than bitterness…[It] must be granted before it can be felt, but it does come eventually. It leads to a new peace, a resurrection.”Jesus Christ paid the price of forgiveness dearly on the cross, but it led to his resurrection. We too, are called to forgive unto death (Mark 11:25, Matthew 5:44), and in doing so we follow Christ (Colossians 3:13), each taking up his cross. At the root of forgiveness is love – a sacrificial, selfless love that places the good of others before one’s own good, the kind of love Christ showed on the cross when he gave himself (Luke 23:34).
Keller and Crabb agree that there is a great cost to resurrection, and a pain that must precede the joy we were made for. They describe different aspects of it, or perhaps different ways that it might be experienced, but both describe the same event, a death to self. As we have seen (parts IV and V), the apostle Paul also deals with this painful giving up of oneself to God. And each writer describes a kind of resurrection – a new life and a greater joy that follows, a joy that grows out of love and delights in the good of others, a joy that springs out of the knowledge of Christ and his love, as shown on the cross. Read More...
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Death and Resurrection, Part V
…This death to self involves more than a growing intellectual awareness of our sinfulness and God’s perfections. Real pain and suffering is a necessary part of sanctification, and a part of following Christ (of course, the glory of resurrection far outweighs this cost – see Romans 8:18):
- “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” – Acts 14:22
- “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” – 2 Timothy 3:12
- “We are… heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” – Romans 8:17
Suffering here and now, even martyrdom for some, is a design of God that accomplishes the greater purpose of our participation in the cross of Christ (Philippians 1:29, 3:11; Colossians 1:24) and our growth into people who become more like Christ and see more deeply the riches of the cross and the fullness of God.* It is a necessary part of the rebirth of a dead world (Romans 1:22-23). God speaks of refining his people Israel through suffering in Isaiah 48:10, “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.” It is for their good, and ultimately leads to a greater joy in God and glory given to God (v. 11).
The Bible is clear that supreme joy will replace all suffering in the end and render it as nothing, but it also conveys the message that this life is a bittersweet mixture of joy and sorrow – particularly for those who follow Christ. Remarkably, though, the sorrow serves to heighten the joy that is present in its midst – indeed this is the great purpose of all sadness (see “How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?” of The Reason for God, by Tim Keller), and it is at work even now. This is one of many instances of what might be called the beauty of paradox. J. R. R. Tolkien writes in The Lord of the Rings, “Their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness” (The Return of the King chapter 4, “The Field of Cormallen,” which is my favorite chapter in the trilogy). In his letter, James the brother of Jesus even encourages his readers to “consider it pure joy…whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2). It seems almost contradictory. How can one be, as Paul says, “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:10)? There is a kind of joy that can, I think, even be strengthened and made to grow by suffering. Despite the tension and contrast – even because of it – there is a powerful mystery and deep wisdom in Paul’s words, the same divine wisdom that is present in all God’s redemptive works. That such great beauty and joy and goodness could be brought out of things of great sorrow and evil points to the wisdom of the One who designed it all. I for one desire to taste the joy of which Tolkien and the apostle Paul speak, even if it is to be found amidst suffering...
*John Piper poignantly describes God’s great purpose for the suffering of his people in chapter 10 of Desiring God, “Suffering: The Sacrifice of Christian Hedonism,” available online here.
Read More...