"He could never have done that."

Yes he could.

And I could have as well. And so could you.

Whether he did do it or not, is another matter.

But he could have.

There is no sin into which we are not capable of falling, given the situation and the means.

Yes, feel sad. Feel disappointed. But don't feel shocked.

idolatry or unbelief?

I'm reading Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller. This is a book we brought with us, not one from the holiday house bookshelf. Keller is always good to read. His books have nice big print, thick pages, sparkly covers and one basic idea.

This book is about idolatry, and in particular the idolatry of love, power, money and success and how these 'counterfeit gods' take God's place in our lives. In each chapter, Keller takes a bible story (Abraham sacrificing Isaac, the Jacob-Leah-Rachael love triangle, the rich young ruler etc) and shows how idolatry is at the heart of what is going on. He relates these forms of idolatry to modern day situations and shows how we can pull these false gods off their thrones in our lives.

It has heaps of good stuff. Keller is insightful. His suggestions are helpful. You should read the book.

But I'm not convinced that idolatry should be the primary way that we understand sin, as Keller seems to suggest.

Keller frames the Abraham and Isaac story around Abraham's idolatrous attachment to Isaac:

"This was the ultimate test. Isaac was now everything to Abraham. ... Abraham's affection had become adoration. Previously, Abraham's meaning in life had been dependent on God's word. Now it was becoming dependent on Isaac's love and well-being. The center of Abraham's life was shifting." Keller, Counterfeit Gods, p7.

I think this is a stretch. Genesis and Hebrews interpret this event not as a test of Abraham's love for God over Isaac but of Abraham's belief in God's promises. God had told Abraham that his descendants would come through Isaac (Gen 21:13). Abraham believed this and so reasoned to himself that God must have been planning to raise Isaac from the dead (Heb 11:17-19).

In Genesis 22, it is Abraham's faith that is on trial. God was testing him to see if he really believed that he would do what he said he would do. Unbelief would have been the sin, not idolatry.

I've not finished the book yet, but in the next chapter (Jacob-Rachel-Leah) I think it is a similar stretch to say that idolatry (the idolatry of romantic love, in this case) is at the heart of what's going on.

Anyone else read the book? What do you think?

10 thoughts on sexual sin from 2 Samuel 11-12

1. Idleness and boredom can lead to trouble.

2. Lust can be particular. David had many women with whom he could have legitimately had sex. He wanted Bathsheba.

3. David's sin in 2 Samuel 11 mirrors Eve's sin in the garden.  Both saw the fruit/woman, considered it/her delightful, took it/her, and then ate/had sex. In both cases, God confronts the sinner with their sin and the consequences.  The difference in 2 Samuel is that David repents.  Adam and Eve blame each other.

4. One sin leads to many more.

5. A friend who will unquestioningly help you cover you tracks is a bad friend to have.

6. We all have our weaknesses.  David had two: the habit of using women for his own purposes (cf. Michal in 2 Sam 3) and the inability to bring about justice in his own home and among his friends. These two weaknesses caused major issues.

7. It is interesting that what God speaks to David about is not his sexual ethics but his mercilessness. In the previous 2 chapters, David has been commended for showing the love and compassion (hesed) of God.  God was gracious to him, and he responded in graciousness to others.  It is his un-hesed like behaviour towards Uriah that he is rebuked for in chapter 12.  I am not wanting to trivialise sexual sin (it is not trivial), but it is not the act of having unwed sex that David is punished for.  It is his mercilessness to Uriah (in taking his one wife and having him killed) and lack of gratitude to God for all his blessings.

8. From #7, I wonder if rather than getting all worked up over the sin of lust, we would do better to combat it by working to have the love and compassion of God influence all areas of our lives.  Something like.... "You struggle with lust? Yeah, me too, but I'm not going to act on it because God has showed so much love to me and in response I'm going to show love to x,y, and z. Entertaining lustful thoughts won't help me do that."

9. If life is boring cause you've stayed home when you should have gone off to war (or work), you should busy yourself with thoughts of how you can be merciful to others.  This is what David did in chapters 9 and 10 and it kept him out of trouble. (Kind of.)

10.  God is gracious.  From the beginning, David deserved nothing from God.  God gave him so much and would have given him more if he had asked.  After the Bathsheba/Uriah incident, David deserved nothing but judgement.  (How many commandments did he break in chapter 11?)  But God forgave him as soon as he began to repent!  Bathsheba (who we have to assume is complicit in the whole sordid affair) was given another child - Solomon - who is particularly loved by God, incredibly gifted, and part of the family line of Jesus.  What other God would do that?

on sin

Last night, a conversation opened up about fighting sin and resisting temptation.  Fascinating and useful stuff.  Kutz pushed his 3-man position (read about it here and here), I pushed my desire for the new creation position, and Nathan offered his own sin is inevitable so just get on with it position (which I'm sure he'll blog on soon).


Nathan's very valid criticism of my position is that I've done a Keller and tried to make all sin fit under one heading.  Such a thing can be done - Keller has shown us that if you define and redefine particular sins and colour them in in a certain way, they all look like idolatry.  I've done the same, but squashed and squeezed so that all sinful desires are redefined as desires in some way for the new creation.  It can be helpful, but it's a stretch.

The other criticism of my position was that of whether our desires will actually be fulfilled in the new creation or whether we'll be changed so that our desires will change.  I expect my desires to be filled. I imagine that when I'm with God and his people I'll have these ah-ha moments of 'When I thought I wanted x, I didn't realise that what I actually wanted was this!' (And I'll be thinking about some element of life in the new creation.) But that might be C.S.Lewis and Plato more than it is the bible.


The problem with most of our models is the difficulty in maintaining our utter sinfulness while allowing that the spirit does actually make a difference.  Real progress in godliness is what's expected of us (1 John 1).


There was lots of great clarification along the way.  John had a habit of referring to the bible, which gave us a bit of a jolt.  This is systematics we're doing!  Vibe over text! Andrew pointed out that the bible has lots of ways of describing sin and talking about our fight against it, so no one model is probably going to capture it.

Your thoughts?

godliness as patience

I was speaking to Kutz the other night.  He was telling me how he sees sin as the distortion of a desire which was originally good. So if he feels tempted, he thinks about the particular temptation and tries to discern how, pre-fall, that desire would have been expressed.  He looks backwards.

I do a similar thing, but look forwards.  All of the desires that I feel now are in some way a longing for the new creation.  So when I'm tempted to sin (which is usually about half a second before I'm in the thick of sin) I think about what it is that I really want.  What part of the new creation am I particularly hanging out for at that moment? 

Patience, then, is the virtue I need to cultivate.  I will get what I want, and get it in a much more magnificent form than I can imagine.  But not yet.  I need to wait. 

Just a few short years.

"I'm entitled to some gratification when my life is falling down around me."

That's what a man said he was thinking when he committed child sex offenses. 'Bob', who spoke on 612 ABC radio this morning, considers himself rehabilitated (though still troubled) and is living in a closely monitored half-way house after serving many years in prison. Bob spoke about the difficulties of post-prison life, the harsh (and often ill-informed) community attitudes against sex offenders, and the need for ongoing support.

It was an interesting and deeply sad interview. As a society, we have no idea how to cope with people who have so clearly and atrociously sinned. Self righteousness abounds and everyone is quick to point out that they could never do such a thing!

But what grabbed me was the entitlement thinking which Bob said he used to justify his actions at the time. Bob acted out in the way that he did because he believed he was owed some gratification, given all that he had to live through.

I may not have committed sex crimes, but this entitlement thinking is so familiar. I'm entitled to this, I deserve something, the world owes me, I've been hardly done by... These ideas are everywhere- behind each sinful indulgence I allow myself, each outburst of temper.

But the world owes me nothing. I don't deserve anything. Every mouthful of air is grace. Every minute a gift from God.

I should be thankful I have this day to live, a roof (however small) over my head, footpaths to walk on that I didn't make, shoes to wear that I could never have designed...

Could thankfulness keep us from sin?

on chocolate cake and sin

I love chocolate cake. Truly love it. But it's bad for me. If I eat it, it'll be on my thighs tomorrow and will take weeks of hard work to make it go away. It's so bad. I won't eat it. I won't. But it looks good. I wonder... See that little bit of icing hanging off the side? Maybe if I just broke that off... Such a little bit can't hurt. Mmm. That was good. I wonder if the cake's as good as the icing? I really need to try both to get a feel for what I'm not having. Just a crumb. Oh. Looks a bit obvious that I've broken off that bit. I'll just tidy it up with a knife... Such a thin slice is like having nothing at all. Mmm. Better take some off the other side to keep the same angle...

It's not that bad. It's not like I had the whole piece... But since that I've had that much I might as well finish it off.

For me, the easiest crumb of cake to say no to is the first. After I've had that first bit, there's no stopping me. I've gotten a taste for it and will most likely keep going till all the cake's gone.

I was lying in bed the other night, imagining sin looking like a piece of chocolate cake. My dealing with the two is much the same. I know that x sin is bad. It's bad because God says it is, but it's also bad because it will lead to y and z undesirable consequences. So I decide not to do it. I just won't. Easy. But that tiniest, smallest sckeric of x's icing... I look. I think. I smell. I touch... My mouth is watering... I taste! My senses are euphoric! They cry out for a fuller experience! X, X! (Y and Z are, for the moment, out of sight.) X! The cry is deafening. Resistance useless. Defeat inevitable. I have x and x has me.

The trouble with sin (and chocolate cake) is that very quickly we develop a taste for it. Having had a little bit, we discover that we like it and we want more. There are cakes in the shop window that don't appeal to me. Baked cheese cake, pecan pie... but I'm confident that if I put the time in, I could acquire a taste for these. Similarly with sin. There are sins that I've had no particular inclination towards... but after a few crumbs and a bit of icing, they are putting fat on my soul as chocolate cake adds weight to my thighs.

In fact, I don't think there's many sins I couldn't acquire a taste for if I gave them a go.

So, what's the answer*?

1. Don't buy the cake. Don't even look at it. Don't smell it. Don't touch it. If someone else has brought it into the house, put on your gloves and bin it.

2. Say no to that first crumb and don't break off the icing. It does matter. The first crumb is the easiest to resist.

3. If some (somehow!) reaches your mouth, don't swallow! Stop. Spit it out now. All of it! And bin the rest of the cake.

4. So you've already had some? Don't make it worse. Stop now and bin the rest.

5. Work out what you're really craving. Chances are, it's not chocolate cake. Go fry up a steak.

* To sin, that is. Chocolate cake doesn't matter. In 100 years time, we'll all be thin.

safe sins

Jon from stuff christians like, writes on the common small group experience of confessing 'safe sins' rather than the biggies that are really plaguing us. Confessing so called 'safe sins', like not reading your bible enough, apparently shuts down the possibility of anyone else confessing the more unacceptable sins like pornography.

I have some sympathy for his post. It's not good if we can't trust eachother enough to confess the real sins that we are struggling with. Much worse if we can't trust God to forgive us and help us deal with black and ugly parts of our lives.

But I think that when we start ranking sins we run the risk of forgetting that all sin is bad. Black and ugly, disfigured and disgusting. Socially acceptable or not.

And when such a big deal is made of confession and authenticity and openness and the group experience, the danger is that we'll forget what it's actually all about - repentance, which means change.

I think that if we're not serious about actually changing, there's little point in doing the confession thing at all.

blessed

The last few months have not been spectacular. Black flowers have been in bloom and my attempts to dig them out have been feeble. But I have been praying and God has chosen this time of all times to obviously answer my prayers. I have more evangelistic opportunities then I know what to do with, my bible study group is going really well, Joel's schooling is finally working, I'm writing half-way decent lyrics, I'm feeling not quite so useless pastorally, and now some haunting sins are starting to haunt less.

God blesses us when we don't deserve it. Perhaps he blesses us most when it's most clear that we don't deserve it.

more honesty

The discussion on honesty continues over at Jean's blog.

In my experience, the situation usually goes something like this. We're hanging out with friends and someone says "I find that I'm getting angry with my kids all the time. It's horrible." Then I, wanting to sympathise with her, will jump in saying something like, "Me too. Just yesterday...." then proceed to give an account of my dreadful anger the day before. My friend feels much better because I understand and her sin is 'normal'. I feel better for having helped her to feel better. We also feel better because it's theraputic to talk about what's bothering us. We've gotten it off our chests. Other friends around us will feel better because their experience of anger is not as bad as ours. There has been no repentance, no change, no prayer, no further dependance on God. Nothing has been gained.

I plan to change how I respond in this situation, right from the beginning. Here's how.

1. Take the focus off me. This is about my friend and her godliness, not mine. I need to use my conversational skills to draw her out, not to tell funny (or horrible) stories about myself. I should ask questions about when the sin occurs, how she feels about it at the time (is it a relief?), are the things that she seems to be angry about the things she is really angry about - or are they just an outlet for some deeper anger, discontent or resentment that she has.

2. Agree with her that the sin is significant and horrible, but admit that it's something that we struggle with too (no details!) Don't let her off the hook!

3. Ask questions to help her work out what repentance might look like. For example, if she finds she is angry with her kids because she'd rather read blogs than play with them, perhaps she needs to tackle her blog addiction... (not that I know anything about that!)

4. Pray if appropriate and tell her you'll ask how she's going next week (or whenever).

You can ask me in a few weeks how this is going.

Now what about talking about our sins as part of a bible talk or seminar or something like that?

I think women often do this very unhelpfully. Mature preacher men don't do it much at all. We so want to connect to our hearers that we overshare. When I hear a speaker go into details of her sin I feel self-righteous because I realise I'm doing better than she is - and hey, she's a super christian! - so I stop trying. If we're going about the same, the sin is normalised. It's unlikely that her sin will seem less than mine because she will tell the story so well. I think the policy here should be, more time on what God wants, fewer details about me.

The (male) preacher who has most compellingly called me to repentance is one who has experienced significant struggle with sin. This comes out, not in the details, but in the empathetic way in which he preaches. Without sharing any of his own, I know that he understands my battles and he points me to Jesus for forgiveness and strength.

honesty again

Paul (over at the Sola Panel) and Jean have resurrected our discussion about honesty, sharing and over sharing from earlier in the year.

To get you up to speed... Paul points out very helpfully that confessing sin to eachother can actually be a devious way of avoiding dealing with the sin and appearing righteous and humble before others. What he says resonates painfully.

"You're sitting in church feeling a little more nervous than normal. If you had known that the sermon was going to be about that, you might have decided to stay in bed this morning. But there it is, front and centre on the service outline. What should you do? Thinking at a speed that would normally startle you, you hit upon the perfect strategy: talk to others about ‘it’ before they talk to you. If you start the conversation and talk about how you struggle with ‘it’ before they raise the topic, you're home free! People will think you're godly and open, and you'll be able to walk away feeling good about yourself without having to change a thing. The best defence is a good offence."

Jean has some helpful suggestions to guide our 'honesty' with others. My favourite is that honesty is not an end in itself, but a beginning.

Back when I did my original post, a commenter said what I think is the most helpful thing. There are many things which may not and should not be shared with others - not even with the most trusted and mature christian friend. But there is an outlet. Private prayer.

"What can never enter the corporate prayer of the fellowship may here be silently made known to God." Life Together p64 Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jesus knows our troubles more fully than we do, he sympathizes with our weakness, pleads to God for our forgiveness and strengthens us that we might change. May we be most honest and open with him.

Why do I not change when the calender does?

Because I was away from home, I could not post my new years resolutions. Probably just as well, because two weeks into the new year I find them all in shatters.

the trouble with sin...

... is that it makes God seem less important to those around us.

I wonder how many of my friends have been tempted to take God less seriously because they've seen me blatantly sin.

Something to think about.

how pathetic am I?

I just caught myself gleefully reading an old blog post where a godly blogger was writing about a temptation that she had given in to. I then read follow up posts where she was fighting the sin and gaining some control in that area of her life. I enjoyed the follow up posts much less than the first one.

Because I don't struggle with that particular sin (at the moment) I basked in feelings of self righteousness and victory over my christian sister. Isn't that horrible!

I struggle with many other (more significant) sins. Why could I not feel compassion for her in her battle and joy with her in her victory?

Yet another thing of which to repent.

sin and weakness

"Another point: we are often told in the New Testament to 'be strong' (1 Cor 16:13; Eph 6:10, 2 Tim 2:1; 1 john 2:14). Isn't people's weakness (stupidity, lack of independence, forgetfulness, cowardice, vanity, corruptibility, temptability, etc.) a greater danger than evil? Christ not only makes people 'good'; he makes them strong, too. The sins of weakness are the real human sins, whereas the wilful sins are diabolical (and no doubt 'strong', too!). I must think about this again."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, p148.

ministry wives angst

I went to a ministry wives day on Friday. The speaker had many good things to say and it was helpful. (This post is not a critique of Friday's event.)

I have been to many ministry wives training days. Often, I don't want to go, fearing that I'll just hear the same old stuff again. Many of my friends come away feeling intimidated or depressed at how badly they're doing.

Just in case anyone who looks at this blog are asked to speak at such an event, here are a few points to remember:

1. We're easy targets.
Many of us have very tender consciences and you are speaking to us at the points at which we're most vulnerable - our marriages and our christian service. It really matters to us that we serve our husbands and God's people well - that's why we're in the positions we're in! So be gentle in rebuking us. It really hurts!

2. Our husband's ministries are very different.
There are different challenges in being the wife of a senior minister, an assistant minister, a campus worker, a college lecturer, and a missionary. Don't assume that everyone faces the same challenges as a pastor's wife. In some ways, it is easiest to be a church wife. Many of the others have undefined and invisible roles and the tricky job of supporting their husbands from afar.

3. Our families are very different
What one husband needs from his wife can be quite different from what another needs. Some families are higher maintenance than others. Some wives do it tougher than others.

4. The bedroom is only a very rough barometer of the health of the relationship.
Dissatisfaction in this sector does not necessarily indicate that there is trouble in other areas of the marriage. (Really, who feels like it 3 hours after giving birth?) If you tell us it does, some of us will feel needlessly guilty.

5. A well known church planter from Seattle has observed that minister's wives commit adultery even more often than ministers do. We need to be talking about this.

6. Even if we fail in everything, God still loves us and tomorrow is a new day of grace. Tell us over and over again about God's forgiveness. We so easily forget!

these black flowers

This poem was inspired by this review which I think Nicole linked to.

















these black flowers
like an alcoholic escaping into the bottle, we escape into our sin

these black flowers I tend
flourish.
in summer heat,
in winter frosts,
they blossom.
watered, carefully
nurtured.

there's comfort in the fragrance
of death.
memories of
the old life
unforgotten.
there's grief in leaving

black flowers
remember.

I pick a bunch for the
table.
see them bare, exposed!
my friends retch.
I stand appalled
run
pick in hand
strike by strike
uproot my beauties.

every one.

almost.

these black flowers I tend
flourish.
in summer heat,
in winter frosts,
they blossom.

sar 2008

our humanity and our sin

I spent Saturday at MYC Lite (an afes supporters day) hearing talks about the incarnation and the difference it makes. Tony Rowbotham (one of the speakers) argued that Christ's incarnation teaches us that our humaness matters - and we should embrace it. Those who love football should spend time loving football. It's okay. Those who like to surf, let them surf! Let those who dance, dance! Let those who write, write! Our personalities are part of our humanity and God does not ask us to leave them behind when we become believers.

What Tony said was welcome and compelling but left me with a couple of questions. While our humanity is something that we shouldn't aim to put aside, our sin is. And in my experience the two are fairly tricky to separate. What about when surfing or football become an obsession? Or in my case, what if I want to use poetry to give expression to things which shouldn't be expressed?

For the last few weeks I've been pondering whether or not to write a particular poem. Back here I decided not to write it. Then I changed my mind. Then I changed my mind again. Saturday's talk motivated me to finish it. I posted it here. It ended up as probably the most overtly christian poem I've written yet. It's quite different from how it began - more hope and less angst.

Anyone else have trouble separating out personality/humanity and sin?

convicted

Over the last couple of days I've spent quite a few hours working on a poem. It was about inner tangles and had some nice lines. I was fairly much into it (read: completely involved in it). But after a convicting talk from our bible study leader this morning about striving for godliness, I've been challenged to put it aside. No. Not put it aside. Throw it away and stop thinking about it.

Can I? Should I?

Last week I posted this poem on weddings. It was fun to write and may amuse someone out there. But I probably shouldn't have written it. It's too cynical.

It's so much harder to write things that are fresh and amusing AND edifying. I don't feel like I'm good enough to do it well.

sin and 'honesty'

Honoria's recent post on confessing our sins (the devil loves secrecy) got me thinking. I'm a fairly open person and don't find it all that difficult to share my struggles (not sharing... now there's a challenge!) but I'm thinking increasingly that it's unhelpful to talk about some sins. If I confess that I am struggling with, say, hateful thoughts, and everyone else in my bible study group says 'yeah, me too', I stop thinking that hate is such a dreadful thing. It's been normalised. Unless there is a very godly woman in my group who will take us to a passage and show us that murderers etc will not inherit the kingdom and then ask us all to repent and bring the gospel to us, nothing good has been gained.

Bonhoeffer wrote about this kind of thing. Men in his prison were talking openly about how scarred they were during air-raids. Bonhoeffer thought fear was sin and ought to be concealed. I think his point has applications for other sins. What do you think?

"I've been thinking again over what I wrote to you recently about our own fear. I think that here, under the guise of honesty, something is being passed off as 'natural' that is at bottom a symptom of sin; it is really quite analogous to talking openly about sexual matters. After all, 'truthfulness' does not mean uncovering everything that exists. God himself made clothes for men; and that means in statu corruptionis many things in human life ought to remain covered, and that evil, even though it cannot be eradicated, ought at least to be concealed. Exposure is cynical, and although the cynic prides himself on his exceptional honesty, or claims to want truth at all costs, he misses the crucial fact that since the fall there must be reticence and secrecy."

Deitrich Bonhoeffer Letter and Papers from Prison p.41