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In 1741, Jonathan Edwards delivered what is probably his most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” — one that still is popular among some seminarians today. I don’t want to discuss the strengths or weaknesses of that sermon, since it primarily talks about punishment and hell, and that is not at all my purpose for writing. Rather, I want to refute the idea that God is an angry God. That topic seems to be very popular these days, largely because a relatively small number of Christians have promulgated the saying that “God is not mad, he’s glad”, inciting a reaction among other Christians who feel that God really is mad.

I recently got into a discussion with a group of people about this who seemed to range from saying that God is mad at sinners, to others saying that God is mad anytime someone sins, all the way to a smaller group suggesting that God is just about always mad! Underlying a lot of the discussion was a concern that if people didn’t think God was mad at people who sinned, then why would anybody stop sinning? This feeling goes against the wisdom found in Romans 2:4 that reminds us that it is the kindness of God that leads people to repentance. Or, in common parlance, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

We know from many passages of the Bible that God has emotions, including anger. We also know that God sees everything in the universe, and even focusing only on the planet earth, it says that he knows every hair on our heads (and there are around seven billion heads), and also that he cares for the grasses and wildflowers and even each bird in the air. It also tells us that he knows every need we have before we even talk to him about them in prayer (Matthew 6 and Luke 12). These facts tells us that God has an immense capacity for keeping track of the details of the world and especially of each person, and he is able to interact simultaneously with each one. Trying to imagine the emotions of a God who can see so much and interact so much is beyond me. And, of course, to try to say that God has only one emotion — anger — would just be crazy.

But what is embedded in the idea about God being mad is more of an emotional question than an intellectual question for us. We are really asking, “Is God mad at me?” or possibly, “Is God cranky or emotionally unstable?” or maybe better, “Is God approachable?” And related questions, “How does God feel about someone who is a Christian who sins?” and “How does God feel about a person who does not follow God and who would be called by some ‘a sinner’?” With these questions we have some hope of coming up with reasonable answers based on what Jesus taught and how he lived.
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The Bible is clear that Jesus is the exact representation of God (Hebrews 11:3 and Colossians 1:5). So to get some idea what God the Father is like, look at what Jesus is like. Jesus got mad, but not at sin, per se. He hung out with sinners! Sinners loved him! He didn’t come to condemn them (he said they were already condemned), he came to save them. He forgave the woman caught in adultery, forgave the prostitute who anointed his feet, and was adored by those who had demons cast out of them.

Who did Jesus get mad at? It seems to me that it was primarily religious folk who thought that faith was all about who could obey the rules the best, and were, dare I say “hell-bent” on making sure people followed rules. Consider the number of times Jesus healed people on the Sabbath — which was said to be against the Law — and which made religious people furious, even though sick and infirm people were set free from their suffering. And in the stories that Jesus told, the people that were subject to the king’s anger were either those that refused to forgive others or those that were working against the king.

So we have at least a partial answer so far: Jesus did not seem to be angry in general. He did not seem to be angry with “sinners”, either. When he became angry, it was mostly angry at people that ultimately kept others from drawing near to God and finding God’s blessing. But to get a more complete answer, I want to look at two parables that shed even more light on the questions posed. To keep this post at a reasonable length, I will do write about them in follow-on posts. The first parable is what is typically called the “Parable of the Prodigal Son” (in Luke 15:11-32), one of Jesus’ most famous parables. The other is the “Parable of the Wedding Feast” (in Matthew 22:1-14).

It is amazing to me how much American culture has transformed in the last 20 years as a result of the internet and cell phones. It has changed the nature of our relationships with people and it has changed how we use our time. People seem to fill every moment of the day with activity, much of it including some kind of electronic device, at least in the periphery.

This shift, unfortunately, has seemed to adversely impact the spiritual life of many of the people who follow Jesus. Our attention spans are shorter than they used to be, and it has become much more difficult to find uninterrupted time with which to focus on talking and listening to God.

Prayer has always been an essential component of the life of faith. Even in a busy world, most of us still manage to shoot up emergency prayers for help for ourselves or others in desperate situations. But fewer of us are making time to actually listen to God speak to us, and the time we devote to listening is shorter than it used to be. This is our loss, because the deeper things — the life-changing things — that God would say to us are often said in these times of purposeful, active listening.

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So how do we get reconnected to what we’ve been missing out on? Here is a simple proposition that will get us started: have a cup o’ joe with Jesus every morning. (I don’t get paid by the coffee industry, so feel free to have a tea, hot water, or anything else that will let you pause from the fast pace of life.) Just calm your heart, and talk and listen to Jesus during this time. If it helps, read the Bible a little bit to get you focused, but don’t forsake listening by reading the whole time.

I have my Bible on cell phone now, and fortunately first thing in the morning people don’t text me. But if you use your cell phone as a Bible and people do contact you early, try putting your phone in airplane mode to let you stay focused on God.

Even 10 or 15 minutes with God is better than no minutes. If it works for you, you can do a similar activity in the evening before bed. Imagine getting to have intimate connection with God once or twice a day like this. Imagine what it will do to your spiritual life. And God says to you that it blesses him, too.

When I’m not at work, I’m frequently sporting a t-shirt or hoodie that says “God is incredibly in love with you!” I think this is the main truth about God that people need to hear — mostly because it is the main truth about God! It’s certainly what is on my heart to tell people. But what puzzles me is this: many people seem to believe and receive this message warmly, but for a fairly high percentage of that group, that’s as far as it goes.

Most of us have had crushes on someone at some point in our lives in which the other person did not reciprocate those feelings, or at least didn’t respond in a way that would indicate a mutual affection. If that happened to you, how did that make you feel? I think I was hurt, sad, depressed — all stemming from feeling rejected. And of course, the relationship that might have developed did not.

How do you think God feels when he pours out his love, and yet is rejected? Whether it is a nice rejection (choosing not to respond with your heart and with your life) or an outright rejection or denial, rejection is still rejection. I think God is sad about it, just as most of us were when we experienced rejection. I think he is sad because he really desires to have an intimate relationship with each person — because he values the unique way each person is made and how each expresses himself or herself — and he values the interactions that he could have with them and they with him.

I also think God is sad because he knows that the ultimate destiny of those who reject him is eternity apart from him, and eternity apart from him is hell: figuratively and literally. God hates it when people choose that destiny for themselves. He hates it so much that he came up with a plan to keep people from that destiny. He sent his only son Jesus into the world to die so that he would be able to provide a way for us to be reconciled to God so that we could have the kind of intimacy with God we were made for, and so those who receive Jesus will escape.
Continue reading “Don’t Just Receive God’s Love, Respond”

For people in my area and in my circle, there have been a number of significant unsettling events. First was the major earthquake in Nepal, where several young friends either live or are currently visiting. Then the riots in Baltimore, where many of my friends live or work, even some serving in the police. Who can make sense of an earthquake? And even more so, who can make sense of senseless violence, striking out at innocents?

In these unsettled times, there is only one safe haven, and that is God. One of the verses that I both take comfort from and see a direction for my desire to DO something is Philippians 4:5-7, which says, “The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (NIV).
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Because the Lord is near, we can rest in him. But just to be sure he doesn’t miss anything important (okay, maybe it’s so we get to partner with him), we can discipline ourselves to be aware that because he is near and because he cares, we can begin by thanking him, and then, in that attitude of faith that comes from recognizing our basis for thankfulness, we can present our requests, knowing that he hears us. When we are at that point, we are ready to receive his peace.

I wanted to do something special to honor God on Good Friday this year. Normally I participate in the Cross Walk in my town, in which people from the churches in the area carry an 8-foot high wooden cross about a mile through town. But this year I decided that it would be a lot more meaningful for me to spend the day completely focused on God at a silent retreat.

So around 9 on Good Friday morning, I hopped in my car for the one-hour drive to the silent retreat center. It was raining, and that took some of my excitement away, since I usually walk outdoors a lot at the silent retreat center, and if it rained all day, I’d be stuck inside, potentially with a large number of people. And six hours cramped indoors with a bunch of silent strangers is not the best environment to stay focused on God. But I also sensed God wanted me to go, so I went. It turned out that the rain kept a lot of people home, so the attendance was light. It also didn’t rain the whole time, so I got to walk outdoors for close to two hours, which was quite a blessing, given how comfortable the temperature was.

I don’t normally go to silent retreats with questions on my mind. I am normally content just experiencing the intimate Presence of God and following his lead in the conversation. But this time I went with questions that I had been thinking about for a few days. I had been thinking about Good Friday, and Jesus being crucified. This led me to think — believe it or not — about the original sin in the Garden of Eden, about the wrath of God, about why Jesus had to die for us (instead of God just forgiving us without Jesus’ death), and about the passages in the Bible that talked about the potter and the clay.

I knew that having a lot of questions didn’t guarantee getting a lot of answers — though many of my deepest questions have been answered on silent retreats. But I also sensed while I was driving there that there was a certain order the questions should be addressed in. And by that I mean that there were certain Bible passages that pertained to the various questions, and I had a general idea what order to read the verses in. Which gave me hope that God was going to do something special. But I was completely shocked out how special the time was, and how much I gained significant insight into some of the issues on my heart.

Continue reading “How God Blessed Me on My Good Friday Silent Retreat”

by Timothy S. Thomas

Not too many years ago, hell was a hot topic. Evangelicals were big on telling people that unless they repented, they were going straight to hell when they died. And for a while, that approach to proclaiming the Gospel led to a reasonable amount of success in terms of the evangelical objective: many people realized they didn’t want to go to hell, so they listened to what the evangelizer had to say was the way to avoid going there.

But in the last decade or two, people have mostly stopped listening to what sounds like a bad news message concerning salvation. American (and Western) culture has shifted, so that truth is seen more and more as relative — whatever someone believes is true for them. As a result, the Bible has become less of an objective standard generally respected by the majority as it once was.

Partly in response to these changes, and partly because the message of hell seemed like a secondary issue from God’s perspective, many of us began proclaiming a Gospel that sounds more like Good News. This message is based on telling people about the great love God has for us, along with the message about God’s desire for relationship with us. This alternative approach leads naturally into talking about Jesus, explaining that Jesus died for us because he loves us so much, and that reconciliation with God comes through faith in Jesus.

But here’s the problem: somehow by reformulating the message, it seems that some of the urgency to tell people about Jesus has diminished. Since we put hell on the backburner, so to speak, many of us don’t seem to have the same sense of urgency for people to hear and embrace the Good News.

Continue reading “Hell is Real, and That’s a Good Reason to Speak Up”

My Memories of How My Friends and I Organized the First Running of the Football from Annapolis to the Army-Navy Game

I want to deviate from my normal postings on WowGod.org to tell you a little bit about a tradition that I had an important role in accidentally starting. That tradition is the running of a football from Tecumseh Court at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, to the Army-Navy football game, which is traditionally held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In just 2 days, the 34th annual running of the ball will take place. This year the game is at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland — a short jaunt from the Naval Academy — so the midshipmen will make it a little more challenging by running the ball first to Washington, D.C., then back again.

Army-Navy Football Run in 2011 (l to r) Esther and Josiah (my daughter and son); me; Charlie (Rich’s son); Matt Sharpe; Rich Alexander; and Emil Petruncio. Matt, Rich, Emil, and I were part of the original 41.

I loved running while I was at the Academy as a midshipman, and I had a knack for thinking of innovative things that involved running. In the Spring of 1981, for example, the members of the class of 1982 in 13th Company challenged the other classes in the company to a relay race around the Yard (the grounds of the Naval Academy) to equal the miles of their class — in our case, 82 miles. As I recall, the class of 1981 won that race, to my disappointment. But we had a lot of fun doing it.

So coming into our first class year (senior year), the idea of running a football to Philadelphia sounded like something that would be a lot of fun to do, would show school spirit, and was what I considered within the realm of what was doable — as long as we got our Company Officer’s permission to miss a formation or two while we ran. I shared the idea with my friends, including Dave Samples and Matt Sharpe, and they became partners in this adventure, and I think Dave took the lead in broaching the idea with our Company Officer, Clay Noto, who was a Naval Academy graduate from the class of 1972, and at the time, a major in the United States Marine Corps.

Continue reading “A Running Tradition”