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Any room for the environment?
Q:  If Jesus tells us that our Christian responsibilities are summed up in the command to "love God, and love our neighbour as ourselves" does that leave any room for caring about the environment?


totality vs centre
A:  This twofold summary ("love God & neighbour") is a brilliant summary of the Christian life. But we need to think about what sort of summary it is. There are at least a couple of options: does it express the totality of our obligation to God, or the centre of our obligation to God? Does it sum up everything in the Christian life - without any remainder - or does it point us to the core?


more »If you adopt the 'totality' answer you will run into trouble. It's hard to explain why God puts Adam in the garden of Eden 'to take care of it (Gen. 2v15). It's better to see the twofold summary as expressing the 'centre' of our obligation to God. In one sense, if we are loving God with all our heart and mind and soul, everything else will drop into place. But, sinful as we are, we probably need more direction that that. Jesus gives us more direction by pointing to our neighbour. If we fully love God and our neighbour then (as before) everything else will drop into place. But (also as before) we are still sinful and prone to misunderstand, so God has given us the whole Bible to show us what that looks like. Care for God's creation finds it's place there; it's not the central place - but it's not no place either.

See also:



Tsunamis?
Q:  If God owns the world,
why does he allow tsunamis?

Not as God intended
A:  This is a big question, so be aware that I can only give a taster of an answer within a couple of paragraphs. Basically, this world is not the way God intended it to be. God made the world good originally, and one day Jesus will return to make it good again. Right now it is far from good in many ways.


more »In a nutshell, we live in a world that was made good, but is now broken. Or, in more biblical language, our world is fallen, because of sin. We've told God we don't want him in charge, and God has taken us at our word. In a sense he's taken half a step back from our world, to let us see what living a life without God as God is like. Our world is full of sin, and it's also under a foretaste of God's judgement against sin.

See also:



Making Satan?
Q:  Why did God make Satan?


How did it start?
A:  This question turns on how the world started. God made everything, and God made everything good to start with - Satan didn't start off evil, God created him good. The problem is that it didn't stay that way.

more »The Bible is a very practical book - it is written for us, so it tells us things we need to know. We aren't given a detailed pre-history of how Satan rebelled against God - when he first turns up on the pages of the Bible he has already gone bad. The Bible is more concerned to tell us the story of how we, as humans, rebelled against God - and how we can get right with him again.



Free from sickness?
Q:  Should Christians be free from sickness?
More specifically:
(A) Did Jesus defeat sickness on the cross?
(B) Can we enter that victory now?


A: 

Part (a)

Absolutely!
Yes, absolutely! Jesus defeated sickness - even more than that - Jesus defeated death on the cross. Death is our 'last enemy', our ultimate enemy. It entered the world through sin, and we are powerless in the face of it.

Sickness, disease, pain and aging are foreshadowings of death - they show death at work in us, even while we're still alive. They are reminders to us of how close death is, and how inevitable it is.

Master & Minions
It's like bit like this:
In World War 2, Victory in Europe came to the Allies when they defeated Hitler. Bound up in that defeat, they also defeated Hitler's deputies - Himler, Goering, Goebbels and the rest. In defeating the master, you defeat the minions as well. It's the same with the cross. Jesus defeated death - and bound up in that defeat comes the defeat of every one of death's 'minions' - every sickness and disease there is.
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And Jesus has done even more than defeat death. He has won all these blessings for us:

  • victory over sin - freedom from the penalty and power and presence of sin.
  • adoption as God's children and heirs
  • new resurrection bodies
  • righteousness in him
  • a whole new creation

Jesus has already achieved all this - and more!

Part (b)

But when do we enter his victory? "Now", or "Not yet"? Actually the answer isn't a simple either/or - it's both/and. We enter it now/already and we have not yet entered it finally, fully and completely!

Let's think about 3 examples to help us. The first 2 (New Creation, and Sin) involve something of a sideways step. But looking at them will help us when we return to the 3rd example: Death (and its 'minion', sickness).

Example 1 - New Creation

Think about how we (as believers) enter the new creation Jesus has won:

Jesus has already won both aspects of the new creation blessing for us, but now, already, we have only entered into part of it. And this is not because we have fallen short in some way. It's part of God's plan - now we have the foretaste of our blessings in Christ. When Jesus returns we will receive the fullness of them. When he returns he will bring in the fullness of the new creation (the new creation he has already won).

Example 2 - Sin

Think about how we (as believers) enter Jesus' victory over sin:

  • We are now, already, freed from the penalty of sin. We are forgiven.
  • We are now, already, freed from the power of sin. We are no longer slaves of sin, we are slaves of Christ.
  • But we are not yet free from the presence of sin. One day - when Christ returns, and brings in the new creation - we will be. He has already won that for us. But we haven't entered it yet.

Jesus has already won all those aspects of freedom from sin for us. But now, already, we have only entered into part of them. We have not yet enter Jesus total defeat of sin fully and finally, for sin is still within us.

It is a mistake to think we can be totally free of sin on this side of the new creation. It's a mistake Christians have sometimes made, when they have (rightly) emphasised the "now/already" aspect of us entering into the victory of Christ, but (wrong) forgotten about the "not yet" aspect. We have the foretaste of our blessings in Christ already - and that is wonderful! - but the best is yet to come!!

When Jesus returns we will receive the fullness of every blessing. In particular, when he returns he will bring in the fullness of the victory over sin (the victory he has already won).

Example 3 - Death

As a third (and final) example, think about how we (as believers) enter Jesus' victory over death:

  • We have eternal life now, already. We need not fear the second death of hell - and we know the first death (physical death) is a defeated enemy. We know we will rise again with Christ, in new resurrection bodies, like his.
  • But we do not yet have those new resurrection bodies. We still have our old mortal bodies, and (unless Jesus returns first) we will still die physically, we will still grow old, we will still be subject to pain and suffering, sickness and mourning.

Jesus has already won all those aspects of victory over death (and its minions). But now, already, we have only entered into part of them. Again, this is not because we have fallen short in some way. It's because we are still in the old creation - the creation that groans (in pain and sickness and death) waiting for the new creation to be fully revealed.

Again, this is part of God's plan. Now we have the foretaste of our blessings in Christ - those foretastes may include times when God heals beyond all hope, or temporarily gives a reprieve from death beyond all expectation. We may see glimpses of the new heavens and the new earth breaking into this one. But they are still only glimpses - we're not in the new heavens and new earth yet. That new creation will be wonderfully better than anything we can ask for or imagine.

When Jesus returns we will receive his victory in its fullness. When he returns he will bring in the fullness of his victory over death (the victory he has already won). He will then banish all sickness and death, all pain and mourning, all crying and fear, all sorrow and anguish, all sin and evil.

Come, Lord Jesus!