P. S to 'On Sin and Righteousness'

one of our responsive readings in church today read like this:

"The One You gave to be our Righteousness, we put to death with our sin. And even as believers, we do not rest well in His provision for us, but we seek other means of atonement rather than trusting in His sacrifice: our good behavior, reputation, and law keeping. Have mercy on us, O Lord."

I can't say it much better than this :-)

On Sin and Righteousness - Part 3

Like sin, our tendencies to make sense of righteousness flows through our need for correct behavior. Also, like sin when we restrcit our sense-making of becoming righteous to a behavioral modification program, we miss the richness of what God intends for us and we fail anyway. This is what Jesus was getting at in what we call the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5 - 7). The key point He makes is that "our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees for us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt 5: 20). Now, our flesh wants us to see this as just a higher standard and bigger challenge. Jesus quite often taught in contradictions and hyperbole. Such as the case here when He really means behaving to a standard is the wrong way to amke sense of righteousness. Right before this He already told us He has taken care of our failure to obey God's laws. Even prior to this He decribes that our well-being (Beattitudes) is an internal derived joy that is related to our appropriation of Grace (receiving the provisions and privileges of the Heavenlies) in contrast to getting the right circumstances around us to meed our needs.

Back to Matt 5:20, the word "enter" here means "coming and going". Thus, Jesus is relating righteousness to the continual interaction we have with the Heavenlies. This is consistent with John 17:3 which defines eternal life as an intimate realtionship with God thru the person of Jesus. This righteousness, according to Paul in Romans 4: 3 - 5, is a result of faith. Jesus paved the way for our righteousness by taking all our sin on Himself (II Corinthians 5: 21).

Making sense of our righteousness then can use several different frames of thinking. One is an intimate relationship with Jesus. Another is the notion of being in harmony with the Heavenlies. I like the latter as a helpful way to understand the rest of Matt 5 - 7 where Jesus is simply contrasting Social Exchange with Harmony with the Heavenlies - man's view of well-being versus God's view of well-being.

I'll end with an example that has helped me make sense of  a life of harmony with the Heavenlies. Those of us that play golf enough know what we must do to hit the ball perfectly and have occassionally found the perfect swing, one in which our head is down, our elbow is tucked, and our arm is extended. We don't always, even often, find that sweet spot because we get distracted and lose focus and what we believe about the golf swing is dishonored so to speak. Our swing is not in harmony with what we believe and our shot is flawed. But when our concentration is right and everything in our swing is in harmony, our behavioral outcome honors what we believe.   And sometimes we even say, "Praise God!"

On Sin and Righteousness - Part 2

What causes us to "miss the mark" or have a dysfunctional aim in our lives? What difference does it make anyway - does sin really have consequences? The answer to these questions really flows from the previous discussion on what sin is - a faith pothole.

James says "we are tempted when we are drawn away by our own desires", which then births sin. "Drawn away" from what? What must we desire that makes us "miss the mark"? We are constatntly drawn away from trusting our well-being to God. Our flesh walks by sight and seeks temporal satisfaction. Our nature wants our skin itches to be scratched while God wants our soul itches to be scratched. Our desire to see our circumstances as the way to make sense of our identity and value is dysfunctional relative to God's perspective because it lacks our faith in the invisible and eternal provisions and privileges of Heaven.

Does a dysfunctional aim that "misses the mark" really matter? James goes on to say that "when sin is full grown, it leads to death."  We know from the story of The Fall in Genesis that death and destruction entered the world when Adam and Eve decided that becoming self-sufficient in gratifying their desires was preferred to enjoying the provisions of God's Kingdom. While Adam and Eve's physical life (bios) did not die at that moment, their spirit life (zoe) did. Sin is what separates us from the fellowship with God that He wants to have with us and made provision for us to have with Him. Righteousness is what the Bible calls this right relationship and that will come next :-)

On Sin and Righteousness - Part 1

Most people I know want to be a "good person". Generally, being a "good person" means doing the right things and not doing the wrong things. Thus, making sense of the notion of being a "good person" is definitely a behavioral challenge.  The language used by Christians for the life goal of "being a good person" invokes the language of sin (bad) and righteousness (good).

During the 2008 Presidential campaign Obama was asked what his definition of sin is. His response, "being out of alignment with my values." Now that is stinking thinking and a perfect example of the principle that "if a word can mean anything then a word means nothing." Whereas, the definition of sin in the original Webster dictionary (1828) said sin is "any voluntary transgression of divine law", the current expert on words, Wikipedia, states sin is "a term used in religious context to describe an act that violates a moral rule."

I guess one can see why we lack clarity on making sense of "being a good person." Jesus complicates the whole matter when He says to the rich young ruler, "no one is good but God." The Apostle Paul says God's law (or rules) exist to show us our sinfulness, not a standard that we can achieve to provide us a way to be acceptable to God.

To make sense of the notion of sin and being a good person, we have to move past the idea that sin is about behavior and to the idea that sin is about our "aim". While occassionally the word "sin" in scripture references some form of transgression, the primary Greek word for sin is "hamartia", which simply means "missing the mark." It was used to describe an archer's being off target. In Romans 14:23 Paul gives us a straight forward definition of what is sin when he says, "anything that is not of faith is sin.".

I would conclude from this that our aim should be to believe God's model of Grace and walk accordingly versus relying on our nature (the flesh), which structures our walk to gain well being from the world around us. The criteria for "being good" is not the behavior itself but the heart of the beliefs by which we behave.   (more to come) 

The mulitple faces of self-esteem

                 

There are few concepts in the study of human behavior that have more confusion around it than self-esteem. There are at least two areas where this confusion exists. First, almost every student I teach will confuse esteem with the notion of efficacy. Self-esteem is the belief in one's own value or importance while self-efficacy is the belief one can be successful at achieving a specific task. Esteem is about self-worth and efficacy is about confidence. Self-efficacy is related to downstream levels of performance and esteem is not.
             
The most significant confusion on self-esteem is the notion of the source of one's own esteem. While there is considerable research establishing the down stream attitudes and behavior that result from esteem (such as response to feedback and procedural justice), there is really no research supporting the source of esteem. The prevailing assumption is self-esteem comes from "what we do" and is determined by messages from one's external environment. There is considerable sentiment that parents, bosses, etc. can develop a person's esteem by the messages that they communicate to them. This is generally called 'performance based esteem'.

Even the "great scholar" Dennis Quaid suggests that there is another source of one's self-esteem. In a magazine interview he states that one's esteem may be a result of "who we are not what we do." This is actually in concert with the position on esteem that comes from Christianity. The source of esteem for any Child of the King should be based on who they are. Worth or value of anything is essentially established by the price one is willing to pay. In the case of a Christian the price paid for his/her life is the Cross. Paul says "my life is not my own it hs been bought with a price."

When we realize that our value has been determined by Jesus work on the cross, we no longer seek our value from our environment or our performance. Divorcing our value from our jobs and what others' opinion of us is another place where we get the freedom that comes from the truth embodied in the person of Jesus.

Why Trust?

I ask my students a simple but profund question: why do Executives and employees alike desire more trust in their organization yet we have so little of it? The answer lies in the meaning of trust that is not necessarily well understood. Trust is the willingness of one party to give control to another party believing that the trusted party will act in the trusting party's interest and not their own. A short version of the definition is "willful vulnerability." Therein lies the issue. Most everyone in our culture is taught from an early age to value control and not be vulnerable to anyone. We are condtioned to believe vulnerability shows weakness against the more preferred "take charge of our lives" mentality. Yet trust is actually dealing from strength and the outcome of vulnerability is intimacy. To know and be known is one of the basic yearnings of our soul. When trust is high the parties in a relationship are free to let information flow without fear that the other party will take advantage of them and harm them in some way.

The fear of being vulnerable in our human relationships has a high correlation with the degree to which we understand Grace. If we fully believed God when he says we are predestined to glory, that all things work together for good (God's purposes), and that nothing, NOTHING can separate us from the love of God, then why would we ever be fearful of what others may think or do to us?  If we believed the Luke 12 passage "fear not little flock, the Father has chosen gladly to give you His Kingdom", then why would we go through life "protecting" our stuff and particularly our self-image with others.

Trust is a faith crisis. When we fully trust God, His Grace, and His word about His relationship with us, we can risk being vulnerable with others (as appropariate) and find intimacy (into-me-see), which is the joy of life. Jesus says in John 17, "and this is the real life (zoe) that you know (have deep intimacy with) the God of the universe through His son Jesus whom He sent to us fot hat purpose".

if a word can mean anything then it means nothing

One of the casualties of our post modern culture is that people make words mean whatever they want, and we've walked away from the power of language. That is, we let sense-making inform us of what words mean rather than let the meaning of words inform our sense-making. This constrains our ability to understand each other and universal truths that guide our reality.

For instance, what does it mean when I say "I love you"? There are four different words in Greek, the foundational language of the New Testament. One form of love is friendship, another is family love, still another is about sensual desire for another, and still there is God's love or unmerited favor. There are three words for "life" and depending on which life form we are referencing, we get a different understanding. Bios means the natural order from physical birth to physical death, psyche references that which makes us who we are that the doctor cannot discover with x-rays and blood tests, sometimes referred to as our soul. Lastly there is zoe which is our spirit life or the life we receive from God (eternal life). The word "world" can mean the earth, the inhabitants of the earth, or the system by which earthly beings operate (culture). There are over 20 Greek words translated into the word "suffer" and three meanings of "to judge."

In my blogs I will opine on words in which I have found many people have "stinking thinking". That is to say these are words with powerful implications on our sense-making that our culture has allowed to be diffused to confuse us. Words like sin, righteousness (justice), self-esteem, motivation, and trust.

ENJOY!!

P.S. on the previous posts

"I call upon you, therefore, brethren, through the compassions of God, to present your bodies a sacrifice -- living, sanctified, acceptable to God -- your intelligent service"  Romans 12: 1

Paul says that our sacrifice to God is not our gifts BUT living with "intelligent service". What is that?

"be not conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, for your proving what [is] the will of God -- the good, and acceptable, and perfect. "   Romans 12: 2

Oh, so God's will is that we use His models for ordering our lives, not those that come naturally to us with our packaging (flesh).   Well, what is His model?

"For I say, through the grace that was given to me, to every one who is among you, not to think above what it behoveth to think; but to think so as to think wisely, as to each God did deal a measure of faith"  Ro 12:3

Oh, it's Grace that should order our lives, not Social Excahnge or Equity and Grace comes to us thru Faith.

Cool way to make scripture relevant. Thank U God!!

Coming soon

On Sin and Righteousness

Trust

Self-esteem

"But its not fair"

          

Some behavior scholars believe justice is man’s preeminent concern.  We can safely say that “it’s not fair” is arguably the most common phrase I heard from my children as they grew from childhood through their teens. Much of our public discourse on policy is about “what’s fair”. One issue with fairness is that there are multiple criteria by which fairness judgments are based. The most common three are equity, equality, and needs. Judgment of what is right varies by person and by situation based on which norm or basis of fairness is applied.

Probably the most common norm of fairness is equity, or what is often viewed as “getting what one deserves”. Thus, the seminal theory of justice is Adam’s Equity Theory. Adam posits that individuals make judgments of what is fair not based solely on what they receive or what they give, but the ratio of what they receive relative to what they give. Let’s represent this ratio R_I/G_I or what I receive relative to what I give.

The judgment is formed when we compare this ratio to some referent, something we chose that we think this ratio should be approximately equal to. For example, we may compare the pay wage we receive relative to the hours we work to some other person’s ratio of pay to hours worked. Each individual chooses the referent they use to compare their ratio with in many different areas to form their fariness judgment. The main point of the theory is that we change what we choose to give relative to what we receive based on whether our ratio is lower or higher than the referent. So if our ratio is lower than our referent, we decrease what we give to increase our ratio to remain equilibrium with our referent. In contrast, if our ratio is high, we increase what we give to reduce the ratio and maintain equilibrium.

Much like Social Exchange Theory, if we receive love that we cannot measure up to or deserve, we feel obligated to give back more to get our ratio up to equilibrium. This is a source of legalism. If we feel we cannot give enough to maintain equilibrium or if we feel the giver of what we received has not given us enough relative to what we think is fair, we abandon the relationship. Such is the case in the parable of the landowner (Matt 20). Here the laborers who were the most ambitious and worked all day were rewarded with the same pay as the laborers who only worked an hour.  This action by the reward giver was deemed unfair by the ambitious laborers and they abandoned the landowner grumbling all the way.

The landowner responded, why do you judge me unfavorably? Is it because of your “envious eye?”  In this story Jesus is saying that these people have an “eye (I) problem” because they choose not to accept the reward of the landowner. They abandon the landowner (God) because they cannot make sense of equity. Their judgment of fairness is based on sense making through their flesh or nature (Equity Theory). They assume the “I” in the equity ratio is themselves.  The Kingdom model of Grace replaces the “G_I” with “G_C” where Christ is the giver and we are the receiver. We cannot give anything to receive the provisions and privileges of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus is the only giver. This is what Jesus meant in Matt 5 where He says He didn't come to destroy the law (justice) but to fulfill the law, replace our need to give with His acting in our stead (propitiation).

“The first shall be last and the last first” simply is a reference to the contrast of Equity Theory with Grace, God’s way to maintain our relationship with Him. The Kingdom economy is nonsense to the carnal mind.  

Sense making

           

Sense making is "the narrative by which we give meaning to something". The something can be either ourselves or events occurring around us. Since everyone filters and bias information we take in through schemes of perception, the mental model we use determines the meaning. There are models that are part of our flesh (human nature) and there are models that come with regeneration, transformed by the Spirit of God. That's what Paul means when he says "do not be confromed to this world (man's nature and the system it resides in) but have your mind transformed". Jesus says "the truth shall set you free." One aspect of this is that although we are still susceptiable to our flesh models, we are no longer in bondage to them and have the ability to make sense of ourselves and our world around thru the eyes of God (the Kingdom mind).

Social Exchange Theory

Social Exchange is a seminal theory of relationships between individuals, individuals and groups, and between groups. It basically states that the force that holds relationships together is the value that passes between them. This is basically a norm of reciprocity where entities give in order to get. The relationship remains as long as equilibrium is maintained. This is the basis for the principle that marriage is 50-50, or the Teddy gram Valentines commercial that says "the gift that keeps on giving so that you can keep on getting." What one receives from giving does not have to be of like kind but of equal value (e.g., I can give someone money but expect status or respect in return). The motives behind giving is fairly well recognized and is captured in Matt 6 when Jesus says that if we give charitable gifts for an earthly reward (Social Exchange), that is all we will get. The more subtle aspect of Social Exchange is the response of the receiver. Receiving obligates us to return something of equal value (again, not necessarily in like kind). This is as simple as when we receive a gift for Christmas from someone we didn't expect, we immediately turn our attention to what we need to get them in return. This is a major love blocker. That is, when someone gives us love (attention, respect, loyalty, etc.) we get "uncomfortable" if we don't  believe we can measure up (fear), or we can't give back to that person in equal measure (guilt), or this obligates us in ways we do not like (shame). This constrains our ability to simply receive the love offered. Many relationships are restricted or destroyed because people cannot handle the obligations that go with receiving. This is how our flesh operates and is in direct contrast with Grace. Jesus says receive me and my love for you and your only response is to walk in thanksgiving, not obligation. Responding to Grace with obligation, not thanksgiving, is the heart of legalism and it breaks God's heart.

Seeing life thru the eyes of God - contrasting paradigms

In the past couple of years I have been inspired to consider Grace from a whole new angle. I had always thought the core of the Gospel was me becoming a servant and serving Christ and extending His grace to others. I am beginning to learn that the heart of the Gospel is that Christ serves me ("if you Peter do not let me wash your feet, then you will have no part of me") and thus having received Him, we walk abounding in Thanksgiving. This is so hard because our nature is constrained to respond to receiving with obligation, not thanksgiving. I will use Social Exchange Theory and Equity Theory to explain how our flesh (our human nature) constrains our sense-making in such a way that we must reject love (God's and other humans). We lose control when we are obligated to respond to what is given to us. Obligation fosters fear, guilt and shame. Lots more to say about this, plus how humans' preiminent concern for justice produces similar assault on our making sense of life thru the eyes of God (probably the title of the book)

welcome me!!

I started a blog all on my on - with a little help from my friends :-)