Spiritual Guidance Counselor

In my last blog post, Kara pointed out that I left out one of the greatest sources of truth, and that is what is commonly known as "the Leading of the Holy Spirit". She was absolutely correct; I left it out on purpose. I left it out for two reasons. The first reason is that I wanted the demonstrate that the process that Christians go through, in order to discover truth, is almost identical to the search for truth in other disciplines, whether it is science, or mathematics, or history.

The second reason I gave was that I personally don't understand it. It's actually a little more than that; I don't trust it. Don't get me wrong; it's not that the Holy Spirit is not trustworthy, it's that I do not trust my ability to recognize it. More on that in a moment. Let me first say, this is me being transparent, honest, and vulnerable, so, please... go easy.

It's amazing to me that despite this (the leading of the Holy Spirit) being a thing that is talked about on a relatively frequent basis in the Christian community, how little we actually understand it. It's one of those things that people say and assume that people know what they mean and yet people really don't understand. It's like the story of the Emperor's New Clothes; everyone is thinking it, but no one has the guts to say anything.

So let's talk about it. Think about this: when was the last time you heard someone say "God led me to ...." or "I felt the Holy Spirit's leading in this matter..." Did you understand what they meant? Did you question their guidance? Did you ask them, "What did God say, exactly?" If not, why not?

Before we dive into those questions, let me lay out the foundation. Jesus himself described a "Counselor", which we understand to be a reference to the Holy Spirit.

John 16:5-15

⁵Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' ⁶Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. ⁷But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; ¹⁰in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; ¹¹and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

¹²"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. ¹⁵All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

So we know from these verses that one of the tasks of the Holy Spirit is to "guide us into all truth." But how exactly does this happen? In what ways does He guide us? I'm going to lay out three potential ways that the Holy Spirit uses to communicate with us and, along the way, point out just how little we know about each. If there are other ways than these three, I'm not aware of them.

Audible

In most cases in the Bible, audible speech was the primary way that God communicated to His prophets and people. However, if you were to poll Christians, I think you would find that most of them do not believe that God communicates in this way anymore, or if they do believe he still audibly speaks to people, they feel that it is only on very, very rare occasions. Many people would even consider you a lunatic if you claimed that you audibly heard the voice of God. Why is this? Why did God stop speaking to people directly? This method of communication is the most clear and unmistakeable. If you hear the voice of God such that you are able to repeat the words that He said, then there should be absolutely no confusion as to what He said. Unfortunately, like most people, I have no personal experience in this area, so I have only questions and very little answers.

Circumstantial

An interesting feature of the human mind is that it instinctively understands probability. You may never have been exposed to probability through academic study, yet if I tell you that I flipped a coin 100 times and it came up heads every time, you simply won't believe me. Many Christians believe that the Holy Spirit sometimes guides us through life by using our circumstances. They get to a point in their life where they need to make a choice and they begin looking for the "doors" that are open or closed to them, attributing this to the Holy Spirit. While I believe that God can and does manipulate our circumstances to guide us in a particular direction, the real challenge is to distinguish real guidance from simple coincidence. Too many times have I seen Christians assume that, because a particular opportunity is open to them, it is God's will and plunge headlong into something that turns out to be a very bad decision. So how do we know if God is trying to guide us through circumstances or not? I don't have any real solid answers here. The only thing I'm able to lean on to help distiguish is my sense of probability; the more unlikely a set of events is, the more likely it is that an outside influence, such as the Holy Spirit has a hand in it. So for example, if I'm on my way to the airport and I encounter a red light, I'll think nothing of it. However, if I hit all the lights red, my car has a flat tire, the road I was planning on taking to the airport is closed for construction, and then later I hear that the plane I was supposed to be on had engine trouble, then I might think that God had really not intended for me to be on that plane that day.

Mental

Ok, so this is the one I most want to talk about, because it is the most common, yet we understand so little. We hear this all the time. People say that God "led" them to do this or that. Even George W. Bush has said that God told him to "go and end the tyranny in Iraq." I can accept that God speaks to people, but I'm not sure how to be certain that it is true or not.

To define this method of communication, I would say the common view is that the Holy Spirit inserts thoughts into your stream of consciousness. You can't hear it with your ears, the thoughts just appear. This is similar to the concept of "telepathy", except that word doesn't fit; the prefix "tele" implies "transmission over a distance" but since the Holy Spirit is living inside Christians, there is no distance. For sake of discussion, let's give these thoughts a name; let's call this a "God-thought". All the rest are typically "Me-thoughts". It might be possible that all of your thoughts don't fall into those two buckets, but we'll touch on that later.

Here's an analogy that I've shared with a few people. Remember the classic episode of I Love Lucy where Ethel and Lucy are trying to wrap candies coming off a conveyor belt? Imagine your mind is like that conveyor belt and on it are your thoughts as they go streaming by. Instead of wrapping candies, your job is to sort those thoughts. You have two big boxes to throw the thoughts into, one labeled "God", and the other labeled "Me". The "God-thoughts" go in the "God" box, and the "Me-thoughts" go in the "Me" box. When making your decisions, you will rely heavily on whatever is in the "God" box and take everything in the "Me" box with a grain of salt.

The problem is that the two types of thoughts appear very similar and I don't feel that we as Christians have ever been taught how to properly differentiate between one type or the other. Some people have a loose "filter"; there's a lot of "Me-thoughts" that end up in the "God" box. i.e. there's a lot of times when people come up with ideas on their own and and then attribute them to God. The good news is that there's a little bit of help in this area; the Bible should be an initial "filter" before your own. If a thought crosses into your mind that conflicts with what the Bible says, it should immediately get tossed into the "Me" box. Following this principle should solve cases that blatantly contradict the Bible, so for example, if someone says "God told me I should leave my wife", you can confidently say, "Uh, no, sorry, He most definitely did not." But that leaves a whole group of ideas that are not directly contradictory to the Bible. How do we respond to someone who says "I think God is leading us to move to another state." How can we be sure? It sure looked like a God-thought when I tossed it into the box, but how can I be sure I'm not tossing my own thoughts in there?

Then there's the other side of things; people, like me, with the "strict" filter. To be safe, I, by nature, toss everything in the "Me" box. It has the advantage of never doing the wrong thing because you mistakenly thought God said it. But I can say from experience, it leaves you wondering why God never says anything to you. You feel like you're on your own. It's for this very reason that I left the Holy Spirit out of the process for determining truth; I can't be certain of the source. I think that there must be times where I may ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit because I'm chucking everything that "still small voice" says into the "Me" box.

There's also a more sinister notion here. If Satan is the "Deceiver", how does he go about deceiving? I'm pretty sure he doesn't audibly talk to us, so then does that mean he is also able to insert thoughts into our stream of consciousness? If this is so, having a "loose" filter is even more dangerous, because not only is there the chance that you might attribute your own thoughts to God, you might even toss a "Satan-thought" in there too!

So, with this analogy in mind, how can you tell the difference? Do you just guess? Jesus says in John 10:27, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." Can anyone please tell me what His voice sounds like?

In Search of Truth

I made a comment on this blog recently that caused quite the firestorm of criticism, including getting my words misinterpreted on another blog. So that you don't all think that I'm off my rocker, I'd like to talk a little more about that statement. Here's what I said:

Scripture is written word. It doesn't become truth until it is read and interpreted. That interpretation is a personal opinion. To think that there is some sort of "universal" interpretation that does not rely on individual interpretation is naive. We only get close to that when the interpretations of many individuals all agree; then we can be fairly certain that we've hit upon a real truth. So, when I ask for your position, I'm asking for your interpretation of the Bible in order to see if it matches up with my interpretation. If we can agree on our interpretations, we're closer to discovering the truth.

I think the misunderstanding is in how we view the concept of truth. So, let's talk about truth.

First off, what is truth? At first glance, this seems like an easy question; either a statement or idea is true or false, and if it is true, that constitutes truth. If it were that easy, there wouldn't be at least 6 different major theories on truth proposed by philosophers. Now, I'm not going to go into all that; if you want, you can read about it yourself by clicking the link. Instead, I'm going to give you my simpler view of truth, which is probably contained in one or more of those theories, but I'm not quite smart enough to figure out which.

I believe that truth can be thought of in terms of different aspects of truth.

Absolute Truth

Absolute Truth describes the absolute, real state of something. For any given statement, there is a right and there is a wrong. There is absolute truth contained in the pages of the Bible.

However, the challenge with Absolute Truth is that is extremely difficult to know whether we've discovered it or not. Something may seem like Absolute Truth, but may later turn out it's not. If that's the case, then whatever it was couldn't have been Absolute Truth to begin with and the idea that we had was something else. This is a complicated idea, so let me give you an example. In the Middle Ages, it was generally accepted that the Earth was flat. They held this to be "Absolute Truth". However, the moment someone sailed around the world, it was discovered that this "Absolute Truth" actually wasn't true. What they thought was truth turned out to not be.

Objective Truth

Fortunately, we've got some tools at our disposal to discover truth. The process of discovering truth goes something like this:

1. Someone comes up with idea or concept that they think might be true. (In science, they call this a theory or hypothesis)
2. They gather evidence to support their idea
3. They test the evidence and either prove or disprove the idea.

If you can get through all three steps and prove the concept, you can be relatively sure that you've discovered an Absolute Truth. But wait, "relatively sure"? Yep, unfortunately, sometimes the evidence can lead you away from absolute truth. Here's an example: from our vantage point living on planet Earth, the evidence seems to suggest that the Sun orbits the Earth; it sure appears that way; the Sun appears to move in the sky in pretty much the same manner as the Moon does, yet we know now that one orbits the Earth and the other does not. So, for a long time, it was considered Absolute Truth that everything revolved around the Earth. And then somewhere along the way we discovered that, what we thought was absolute truth, really was not.

For sake of this discussion, I'm going to call the kind of truth that you have the ability to prove, "Objective Truth". There's a lot of stuff that falls into this category. One plus one equals two. The sky is blue. What goes up must come down. The nation of Israel settled near the Mediterranean Sea. Jesus Christ died on the cross. These are all things that can be proven true or false.

Subjective Truth

But what if you can't prove it? What if you can't test your idea? What then? How do you determine what is truth and what is not? For example, the Bible says in John 1:1-2, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the Beginning." Is there some Absolute Truth in there? Yeah, I think so. It is generally taught that the "Word" referred to in the verse is Jesus. This is the "truth" that is taught. But can I test it out? Can I verify this truth? No. I have no way to rewind time and observe the beginning of everything and see for myself if Jesus was really there. So then how can I really know if I've got real truth or something that just looks like it?

This is the heart of my earlier comment about "interpreting" the Bible. The reality is that, for many concepts taught in the Bible, we simply don't have any means of solidly verifying them beyond all question. Does this mean I am implying that there is no Absolute Truth in the Bible like certain people have suggested? Of course not! The Absolute Truth is there; we just have a limited ability to discover it.

So what do we do then? Do we discard everything in the Bible that we can't prove? No, of course not. But the process is different than for objective truth. First off, we read the words of the Bible and formulate an idea of what we think it means to us personally. Then we need to subject those ideas to scrutiny. How does your understanding of the Bible compare to how other people interpret the Bible? Are your ideas consistent with the rest of the Bible? Does it make sense?

In this way, we can start to get closer to that Absolute Truth that we seek, but it's not like objective truth in that we can never be completely certain that what we have in our hands really is Absolute Truth or just an impostor. I believe that it's important to always be challenging those ideas and trying to "sail off the edge of the world".

Seeker Friendly

In the comments of the previous post, 4 Bums and a Rich Man, I ran up against an interesting attitude that got me thinking. In the course of the discussion, I proposed that we avoid as much as possible using Christian jargon and religious terms in order to be better understood by non-Christians. I had no idea that this would ignite the firestorm of comments that it did (41 comments and counting). To summarize my critics, I was warned against "softening" or "compromising" the message, or promoting a "Seeker Friendly paradigm"

Now, just to be clear, I will never advocate altering the Gospel message. The core of the message must remain intact. However, let's be honest for a moment and acknowledge that you can go about presenting almost any message in a variety of ways.

What took me by surprise was the level of contempt that the phrase "Seeker Friendly" was used. It was implied that the people who subscribe to this mentality are way, way off track. Wanting to know more, I googled the phrase, "seeker friendly". Of the links that I clicked on, I found that this attitude is fairly prevalent; most of the articles were in harsh criticism of this approach of running a church. Some even go so far to use the term "Sinner Friendly", which implies an even stronger derogatory meaning.

My initial reaction to Seeker Friendly churches was one of annoyance. It appears that this approach is rooted in the Political Correctness movement, and that just plain drives me up a wall. I've encountered a church similar to one that is described; in the city that I live in, there is a "church" (and I'm using that word very loosely) downtown that doesn't really require you to believe in any particular belief system. You can be Muslim, Buddhist, or whatever, just as long as you are "spiritual". I'm not sure why people even attend; I guess it must be just for a warm, fuzzy, "I'm spiritual" vibe every Sunday.

That being said, I found myself in an odd position. After reading the articles, I could definitely see where the Seeker Friendly approach has the potential to create churches that have lost the substance of Christianity. Nevertheless, I found that aligning myself with the anti-Seeker-Friendly crowd was just as distasteful to me. Underlying it all, there seems an attitude of "Christianity is supposed to be offensive! Don't baby these people; whack them right between the eyes with their sin! Make them feel the full weight and pain of it and then let them crawl to the cross." (My paraphrase, obviously)

The interesting thing to me is that these two camps of people show up in a different realm: Parenting.

On one side, you've got the people who won't ever raise their voices to their kids and punishments consist of attempts to gently persuade the child to behave. These parents are the ones pushing for "everyone wins" rules in school sports. It's easy to spot these people; they're the ones whose kids are screaming and running all around the supermarket, while the parent tries to bribe them with toys if they stop.

On the other side, you've got the people who feel that "When we acted out as kids, dad tanned our hides with his belt. You can't coddle these kids or else they'll turn out spoiled." It's easy to spot these parents also; they're the ones marching resolutely through the supermarket to the car with a crying kid slung over their shoulder, who is desperately pleading for their life. As they pass the first parent, they roll their eyes in contempt.

Coming back to the Seeker Friendly debate, I believe that neither camp is right. Somewhere between these two extremes is the right amount of love and the right amount of toughness. Based on the Bible, I think this midpoint should probably exist closer to the Seeker Friendly end of the spectrum. More on that in a moment.

Let's return to the parenting metaphor for a moment, because I think it has many similarities to a pastor shepherding his flock. Let's talk about Santa Claus for a moment. As a parent, how do you approach this concept with your children? Do you encourage your children to believe in the wonder and fun and magic of an imaginary man in a red suit bringing toys to all boys and girls? Do you let them believe that this jolly fat man stuffs himself down the chimney and brings them toys on Christmas Eve? Do you do this knowing full well that, every time you tell your children that Santa brought the toys under the tree, you're technically deceiving your children and that some day that imaginary world is going to come crashing down?

Or, do you adopt a hard-line approach and tell your children that Santa Claus not only doesn't exist, he's a tool used by Satan to distract people from the real meaning of Christmas, which is that Jesus was born into this screwed-up world in order to die a horrible, painful death in order to keep us all from burning in Hell?

I personally think my parents did a pretty good job with this topic. They taught me that Santa Claus was definitely an imaginary guy that stood for wonderful concepts and that the gifts that appeared under the tree came from them, my loving parents, who were celebrating Jesus' birth. Later on, my sister even started the tradition of baking a birthday cake for Jesus. However they also taught me that there were other kids who did believe in Santa Claus and it wouldn't be good to spoil their imaginary fun. They taught me the truth yet still made it both pleasant and easy for me to understand.

I think we need to take a step back and examine how Jesus operated. What was his approach? Did he confront people with their sin?

Let's look at a couple examples. I've specifically picked a couple examples where Jesus interacted with individuals who were generally considered to have publicly committed very basic wrong deeds; i.e. ones listed in the 10 Commandments.

The Samaritan Woman at the Well - John 4:1-26

In this story we see Jesus approaching a Samaritan woman at a well and asking her for water. Initially, she's taken aback because he's actually talking to her. John explains this by stating that Jews do not associate with Samaritans. (Side note: It's interesting to me that John takes the time to explain this. John obviously knew his audience would be more than just Jews because they would already know this) Jesus then describes a new type of water that she has a difficult time understanding. Once she starts to catch on, Jesus switches topics. He asks her a question that he already knows the answer to, where is her husband. She has to admit that she's not been very faithful on that front. Jesus' response is difficult to interpret here, because we have no idea what his tone of voice was. He confirms the fact that, not only does she not have a husband currently, she's had many in the past. Depending on his tone of voice, this could have either been a harsh denouncement, a tender expression of empathy, or simply an unfeeling statement of fact. But that is all that is said about it. They go on from there to talk about the differences in Samaritan and Jewish beliefs and the coming of the Messiah.

What do you think? Did Jesus intend to embarrass her and confront her with her sin? She must have been somewhat embarrassed to have her secrets laid bare in front of other people. It's interesting; I've always read this story and assumed that it was a private exchange between just Jesus and the woman. However, there had to be someone else there in order for it to be written down in the Bible.

Zacchaeus the Tax Collector - Luke 19:1-9

So, here Jesus is walking along and sees a short guy up in a tree. Now there are a couple things that are implied here. Zacchaeus is described as a "chief tax collector and was wealthy". Back in the day, these guys were the Roman equivalent of the IRS. The problem was that you couldn't just log onto irs.gov, look at the tax rates, figure out how much you needed to pay, and send it in. The tax collectors would come along and tell you what you were supposed to pay. Typically they charged you more that what Rome expected, so the extra would be profit for the tax collector. Imagine how you would feel if your local IRS agent was living in a mansion because some of your taxes were going into his pocket. We can assume from this that Zacchaeus was probably guilty of stealing from people. Jesus shocks the crowd by calling him down from the tree and inviting himself over to his house.

Should Jesus have condemned Zacchaeus for his sin? The crowd certainly thought so. It was apparently foremost on their mind, because they started grumbling about him being a sinner.

I noticed something else in this verse. Why is the word sinner in single quotes? In the NIV it reads:

⁷ All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner.'"

That's two examples. I'm leaving it up to you to help me find more. What tact does Jesus take when approaching 'Seekers'? Is he harsh or soft?